


like ripples on a blank shore

by ssolaris



Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: (just that one scene with seth tho), Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Ellie (The Last of Us) Needs a Hug, F/F, For the most part, Gen, Homophobic Language, Novelization, POV Ellie (The Last of Us), Self-Hatred, Traumatized Ellie (The Last of Us), also pedos dni why do so many of u ship ellie with joel i hate it here, brief mention of substances - weed & alcohol, ellie's favorite word is f!ck, this fic can get kinda dark, vague suicidal mentions that dont amount to anything but if that makes u uncomfy maybe skip this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:00:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25816195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssolaris/pseuds/ssolaris
Summary: Instances in which Ellie has found herself unraveling.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tekina_fiction](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tekina_fiction/gifts).



> i have a bad habit of accidentally creating novellas out of oneshot ideas.
> 
> uh so hi, my brain has decided to latch onto tlou for the past month or so and ive been coping by writing this fic. this thing is sorta my love letter to ellie williams + the series as a whole. a lot of it is a novelization of certain scenes, but it also dives into ellies perspective & psyche throughout the series bc i rly enjoy writing character studies.
> 
> also, this fic ended up being way longer than intended so ive taken the liberty of breaking it up into 3 parts. the whole thing is already written n proofed tho, so updates will be every other day :) enjoy!!

Ellie has found that, throughout her life, she’d really rather not disclose her emotions to others. Not her thoughts, or her beliefs—she will gladly scream those to any jackass that looks at her the wrong way.

But those intimate things that take courage to force up her throat, things that make her cheeks hot and her chest fluttery, are always so much more terrifying. Usually a single admission only spurs along an entire collapse of her composure, and she can’t afford that, nobody can afford that. Not in a place like the world she lives in.

When she’d told Sam all that time ago how she’s mostly scared of ending up alone, it made her feel light. It made her nervous to spit out something so vulnerable, but she told herself it was necessary in the moment, and that he wouldn’t have accepted any shallower of an answer. She wouldn’t have been truthful if she’d said anything else.

Sure, scorpions are creepy, but those aren’t what haunts her at night, when she can’t fall asleep because there’s too much panic pressing against her ribcage, fresh and hot like an iron, driving away any rationality. Ellie is plagued by things much darker, that only ever seem to emerge in the dark when nobody else can see or hear except her.

When she loses Riley, she feels the first stitch come undone; she feels an outburst on the brink of erupting from her, but something is holding back. In her final hours, Ellie watches in growing mortification as Riley’s strength leaves her, as her eyes grow cloudy, as sweat and chills consume her and strip away the light that once beamed from Riley in the form of water gun fights and ramblings of arcade games.

Ellie watches in growing mortification as Riley dies over the course of several hours, while she stands by, completely helpless to do anything about it.

In the end, in the small pocket of time when Riley falls unconscious, her breathing so terribly shallow that she’s practically a corpse already, Ellie can’t find the strength to put the bullet between her eyes to stop her from waking up again as one of those things. She can’t even find the strength to bury the body or kiss her forehead one more time. Instead, she scours the room until she locates a small window to escape through, and then she camps outside in a nearby pavilion for another three nights.

She doesn’t sleep in the span of those three days. On the first morning after she loses Riley, Ellie creeps back into the opposite side of the mall (because she’s too scared of running into her—except it wouldn’t be her anymore, it’d be something much more sinister). She comes across a nearly empty vending machine and returns to the pavilion with a stash of protein bars that hold her over in the meantime.

Ellie does not let herself think about much while she’s here. She eats when she’s hungry, hides from infected when they lurk nearby, but never once lets any tears fall. Never once does she let her thoughts drift to Riley, to silly pictures in the photobooth or stupid Halloween masks or dancing together and laughing and kissing and _What’s wrong? Don’t go._

And she tries not to think about the bite on her arm but it’s hard not to. Not when it’s looking her right in the face, burning when she places weight on it wrong but never worsening. She gets herself to wash away the blood and wraps it with some gauze and she doesn’t allow herself to leave the pavilion for three days because she has to be absolutely sure. She has to be completely positive that she’s not infected before she does anything else, because the idea that she could be _immune_ is… petrifying.

In those three days, before Ellie decides she probably just won’t turn and finally goes out to search for Marlene, she doesn’t really feel much. She goes through the motions of eating and hiding and unending restlessness. She wants more than anything to just go to sleep, and stop thinking about the bite and Riley and whatever comes next, but the bite never kills her and the sleep never comes.

In those three days, Ellie does not break down. All she knows is a numb, persistently cold feeling that fills her and the never-ending thought that repeats itself over and over, hammering itself into her mind: _She should’ve survived, not me._

Several months later, she comes close to falling apart again, but once more, there is something that stops her and she isn’t sure what. There’s more anguish filling her now, verging onto frustration. Maybe she feels betrayed—yes, she definitely does—although she’s not sure, because deep down she knows that the last thing Joel would do is betray her.

It’s hard for her to place trust in him at first. She’s sort of forced to go along with him because Marlene can’t, and he and Tess seem capable enough of delivering her to the Fireflies that can find the cure. Joel treats her like the cargo Marlene tells him she is; he treats her like a weak little girl and it only serves to remind her of how small she felt when she was bitten at the mall.

But then Tess dies. Sam and Henry die, and suddenly this isn’t a simple package delivery for Joel. He never says so explicitly, but Ellie can see it in how he acts. In the ways that he tries not to laugh when she makes a corny joke, in how he finally trusts her with a gun, in how much more steadfastly protective he becomes of her.

Ellie thought she could become more hardened after Riley. She thought she’d stop letting people in, but now she’s let Joel in and she cares too much about him and she knows he cares about her too. He must. _Doesn’t he?_

Maybe not. Maybe he’s too broken and tired of a man to have any sort of compassion anymore, she thinks, desolately, as they stare at one another and she feels herself on the threshold of breaking down.

“Do you even realize what your life means?” he asks her, a stiff frown on his face. Of course she does. Except now, it’s starting to feel like Joel maybe doesn’t care about her at all; he cares about getting her to the Fireflies, alive, so they can find a cure and he can finally be done with her. “Huh? Running off like that, putting your life at risk—it’s pretty goddamn stupid.”

Ellie sits up and snarls, “Well I guess we’re both disappointed with each other, then.”

_Don’t fall apart. Don’t fall apart. You can’t fall apart in front of him._

“What do you want from me?”

“Admit that you wanted to get rid of me the whole time.”

Joel flounders at that. Something shifts minutely in his features, but he’s just searching for excuses. And then he gets angrier, louder, because that’s what he does when he gets upset. When he says, “You’ll do even better with Tommy,” it feels less like a friend she’s disagreeing with that’s yelling at her, and more like a father reprimanding his child for disobeying him.

Something softens in Ellie’s heart and she regains some of her wits. She will not crumble. She will prove him wrong, but she will not crumble. She’s too strong for that; she wants, desperately, to prove to him that she’s too strong for that.

“I’m not her, you know.”

Joel stops. “What?”

“… Maria told me about Sarah, and—”

“Ellie,” he snaps, and he turns to look at her with something dark and deeply wounded in his gaze. This is not a fresh wound, this is a deer that’s been slowly bleeding out and is frantically trying to run away before the arrow piercing its skin saps away the rest of what it still has. Joel’s next words come out hard and sharp. “You are treading on some _mighty_ thin ice, here.”

She tries to quell the pain steadily rising up from the pit of her stomach to her throat and her eyes. She doesn’t do a very good job, but when she speaks, it comes out somewhat stable. Hopefully he can’t hear the tremor in her tone. “I’m sorry about your daughter Joel, but I have lost people too.”

“You have _no idea_ what loss is.”

A spiderweb of cracks race across the dam and Ellie is suddenly very close to collapsing. “Everyone I have cared for has either died or left me. Everyone—” she steps forward to shove him, because she can’t stand the way he’s looking at her, “ _fucking_ except for you. So don’t tell me I’d be safer with someone else, because the truth is I would just be more scared.”

Ellie does not share her feelings. Ellie does not tell people she cares about them.

Joel does not, either, apparently. Except now it doesn’t seem quite the same. Because Ellie cares, she _feels,_ so deeply—but Joel looks at her now like she just gutted him without remorse.

“You’re right,” he says, quietly. “You’re not my daughter. And I sure as hell ain’t your dad. And we are going our separate ways.”

The collapse never comes, because then Tommy rushes in and they have more pressing matters because hunters are invading the house. She thinks, in another world, had they never been interrupted, maybe she would’ve. Maybe the only thing holding the dam together was the ever-present bigger issue, because there was always a bigger issue—whether it was bad people or clickers or something—anything.

Whatever it was, it was always too important for Ellie to let herself cry.

* * *

The first time Ellie truly, completely unravels before Joel, she thinks he’s probably dead.

If the infection of his injury won’t kill him, there’s a good chance the cold will. He’d been on a steady road of recovery since being impaled by that damned metal rod, but she was never that good at stitches and antibiotics were so far and few; even though she got some medicine from David, she remembers how her hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she injected Joel back in the garage. She remembers how she couldn’t tell if it was because she was so cold, or if it was because his face was so tense with pain and his complexion was so unbearably pale and he hadn’t been able to sit up or keep his eyes open very long for weeks, let alone comprehend what was going on around him.

When she’s stuck behind bars, and David is trying to reason with her, all Ellie wants is for him to die, for Joel to wake up and be okay and kill the bastard. _His_ people started this, they’re the reason Joel is where he is, dying, alone, abandoned in the garage.

David asks for her name, and she tells him he’s full of shit. David keeps that maddeningly calm tone as he cleans up the scraps of dishes and food Ellie shoves back under the gate.

“On the contrary, I’ve been quite honest with you. Now I think it’s your turn. It’s the only way I’m gonna be able to convince the others.”

Ellie grasps the bars of her cell door, her knuckles white from how tightly she does. Confusion swirls around in her as David continues this nice guy act, with his soothing words and easy gait as he stalks closer to her.

He tells her that she has heart, loyalty. That she’s _special._

Gingerly, David curls a hand around hers, still locked on the bar, and squeezes it gently, comfortingly.

Ellie feels her stomach twist into knots. She feels weakness in her knees and she tries so, so hard not to break even though everything about this man disgusts her in every manner of the word. But there’s too much rage in her to feel sad or upset, so instead she plays along, and places her other hand over his and gives him a saccharine look of innocence.

And then she pulls hard enough that she hears bone crack, and David groans aloud and shrivels for a moment. She tells him Ellie is the name of the little girl that broke his fucking finger.

In that moment, she feels powerful, in a bitter sort of way. She wishes she could finish the job, but she’s still stuck behind bars and he’s the one with weapons and an armada of men. Even so, this is a small victory that she relishes in; she relishes in not letting him make her feel weak, not letting him push her to falling apart.

She is strong. She is strong.

Later, when she’s escaped but now trapped in a burning restaurant, and she’s trying to reach the machete hidden under a booth even though her body’s screaming at her not to, she tries to remind herself this. She tries to remind herself this as David kicks her and taunts her, kneels over her body and grabs her arms and pins her down in a chokehold and tells her to beg.

Strength is not the word on her mind as she just barely grabs ahold of the machete, and slices his cheek and pushes him down so she’s on top. There is _nothing_ on her mind as she continues, despite his pathetic, guttural cries, to hack his face open over and over and over again. She moves against her own will, so much rage and terror and despair just bubbling over as her vision is blinded with red and tears and the mangled face of David beneath her.

Large, strong arms wrap around her body and yank her back and there’s too much running through her mind to make sense of anything. She screams at this person and tries to squirm out of their grip, but their calloused hands force her to turn around and they cup her face tenderly.

The sound of blood rushing through her ears gives way to murmurs of “It’s me, it’s me, look, it’s me.”

Ellie blinks and tries to hold the dam together. Joel is alive, Joel is here, Joel is holding her in his arms and he’s _here._ She tries to take in a deep breath of air but it comes in a ragged gasp, and she feels so much terribleness overwhelming her because all she wants is to be strong for Joel.

She only manages to get out, “He tried to…” before the tears finally pour freely down her face and Joel barely looks at her, in all of her raw, open pain, before he just pulls her in and lets her cry into his chest.

Everything comes undone, and Ellie feels the dam crumble as a tidal wave emerges over it, unrelenting and vicious as it washes out of her. Joel tells her it’ll be okay, he’s here now, and he thumbs at some of the liquid on her cheek that’s become a mixture of blood and tears. His voice fades away even though she’s still here, still looking at him and watching his lips form words. All she can concentrate on is the feel of him holding her, grounding her, as he slowly helps her to her feet and guides her away from the massacre right behind them.

That night, Ellie doesn’t bother trying to muster any pride. Joel doesn’t say anything when, once back in the garage, she curls up beside him on the mattress as they fall asleep.

For once, she stops trying to just be strong, and only focuses on _being._

* * *

It drives her up the wall.

She tries to get past it.

When she makes Joel swear to her that he’s telling the truth about the Fireflies, as they stand just outside of Jackson, on the brink of entering a new chapter of their lives, she tries to swallow down any other feelings or words she wants to voice.

Because his story doesn’t add up. On a surface level, it’s not completely out of the realm of possibilities that her immunity wouldn’t mean anything. But the entire car drive back to Jackson, all she could think about was the trail of breadcrumbs Joel left behind in his story for her to pick at.

Why couldn’t she have been conscious back in Salt Lake? Why didn’t they wake her up to talk about it with her? Why did they have to leave so suddenly? Shouldn’t the Fireflies have run more tests? Where were the other supposedly immune people and why hadn’t she been able to meet them? Why had she never heard of them?

Ellie knows that Joel is hiding something from her. She tells him to swear to her that he’s telling the truth and he does, without much hesitation. But she knows, deep in the back of her mind, that there’s something not quite adding up.

It’s more painful, to her, for Joel to lie so blatantly to her face. But he desperately seems to want to keep the truth from her, and maybe some naïve part of her wants to believe that he would never lie to her.

So she says okay, and they make their way back to Jackson.

She tries to _be_ okay. For a while, it isn’t too hard. She never forgets Salt Lake, or the entire journey she took with Joel to get there, but Jackson is comfortable and simple and for once she thinks she can reinvent a new life for herself here.

Joel teaches her how to play guitar, how to swim. They celebrate her birthdays and have movie nights and Ellie bonds with the other kids in Jackson that are around her age. She goes on patrols and Maria helps her learn how to garden; she victoriously brings home several pounds of game from hunting trips with Jesse on a few occasions; she gets her first girlfriend, Cat, and it doesn’t work out eventually but she learns a lot about herself and relationships from it.

Sometimes, Ellie recalls that old house she ran off to the last time she came to Jackson with Joel, before Salt Lake. It strikes her, sometimes, how she’d made fun of that diary she’d found from a teenage girl before the whole world ended, and how trivial that girl’s problems had been: picking out outfits, dealing with crushes, complaining about school.

Now, Ellie admittedly has started using her own journal as a diary of sorts. It started as a book of scrap paper for supply runs and her sketches, but then she starts using it to catalogue her own thoughts and musings. It becomes an outlet, and it isn’t just for when she feels really upset, but for equally trivial things like noting a really dumb joke Jesse made, or how worried she’d felt that Dina was growing less talkative with her when she’d started dating Cat.

For once, Ellie thinks she can blend into the perfect picture of normalcy. Not normal like before the outbreak, because nothing would ever be the same, but normal in the way that Jackson feels so tightly knit and safe and full of life in a way that Boston never felt, in a way that living out on the open road with Joel never felt.

But as time progresses, Ellie starts feeling less like she’s becoming a normal teenager, and more like she’s pretending to be one. Joel tells her one day, a few weeks after they first move into Jackson, that they should probably find a more permanent solution to hiding her bite mark. He nearly loses his mind the following day when she reveals the fresh chemical burn in its place, but ultimately they both know what’s done is done, and that at least the problem is dealt with.

Ellie starts dreaming about a world where there are no infected. And she dreams of a world where civilization is rebuilding, where she was never bitten, where Riley is still alive. Where Tess is still alive, and Sam, and Henry.

Sometimes, when trading caravans pass by Jackson, or a patrol group returns from a week-long trip out of town, she finds herself anticipating news: the Fireflies found a cure, there’s more immune people than they could have ever imagined, and they already have a vaccine. The apocalypse is over and everything can go back to normal now.

This never happens, and Ellie starts getting frustrated.

For a long time, she mulls over the day when Joel had tried to take her to a nearby music store to get new guitar strings. She thinks about the bloater that had nearly killed them along the way, and how Joel stopped it just in time. And then, not much later, they’d found the runaway couple from Jackson who were bitten an hour into their journey, left to die alone together.

Ellie had found herself saying, “If only they were immune, right?” before she could stop herself. She’d felt Joel’s gaze burning into her as she stared down at the note the couple had left behind, before he tried averting the subject and insisting they go find Tommy.

But she hadn’t been done yet. She wasn’t ready to sweep this under the rug. So she asked him if he’d ever met another immune person before, and he’d replied that they probably hid it like she did, and then she’d asked him if he really believed that. All he did for a moment was stare.

“Is now really the time for this?” Joel had finally asked in place of an answer, and _god,_ was he really asking that? Two years had passed since Salt Lake and they had barely spoken about it. They danced around the subject skittishly, because whenever Ellie thought about it she just felt so wrong and sick, and whenever she brought it up to Joel he’d just get quiet and evasive.

She was done dancing around the subject. She was done pretending it never happened, that everything was perfectly fine, because it wasn’t. All of her frustrations had started to contaminate her thoughts, her words, and she’d felt it coming out as she told him about her questions, her confusion. Ellie couldn’t bring herself to tell Joel she knew he was lying, that day, but she was growing very close.

But he’d stopped her, told her firmly that there was no cure once again, and when he asked her if she had something else to say, she’d said no.

It isn’t much longer after this day that Ellie reaches her breaking point, and returns to St. Mary’s Hospital, leaving Joel a small note on the counter and leaving in the middle of the night, because she knows he’d never let her go on her own.

She’s long abandoned trying to forget and pretend. She’s losing sleep every night thinking about the _what if’s,_ and if Joel won’t give her a straight answer, then she figures she’ll just go and find it herself.

There’s something haunted and empty about the hospital, Ellie finds, as she roams its dark corridors. She spends hours going through each floor, every room, and most of it is useless to her. Boxes of abandoned personal belongings, medical supplies, all left behind in a hurry. Some walls are splattered in dried blood, blackened and flaky. She stumbles across a plethora of bullets scattered all about the building.

Sometimes she finds something that’s a little more relevant to her. In one supply closet, there’s a handful of brain scans and pictures of a bitten arm that can only be hers. There are vague notes attached, scribbling things like “we need to run more tests,” or “this is big.”

Finally, Ellie finds an empty operating room. There’s a duffel bag on the floor, beside one of the blood splatters, and inside there is a tape recorder. She listens to it fully, once, while still kneeling beside the duffel bag in the operating room. Then she listens again, all the way through, sliding down to sit on the floor and cradle her head in her hands, the recorder discarded beside her.

She takes fifteen minutes to process the words of the unknown woman, and then picks up the device and starts to make her way back outside of the hospital. All the while, Ellie continues to replay the recording, over and over.

She plays it. Rewinds. Plays it. Rewinds.

_“Because even if, by some miracle, we found her or someone else that’s immune, it’d make no difference. ‘Cause the only person who can develop a vaccine is dead.”_

Plays it. Rewinds. Plays it. Rewinds.

When she’s outside, still on the hospital grounds, still replaying the recording, Joel shows up. His horse is galloping at full speed, and as soon as they make eye contact he yells out her name. He dismounts and immediately comes up to wrap her in his arms.

Ellie doesn’t move. She’s shaking, and Joel is holding her close, but she doesn’t make any move to hug him back. She isn’t sure if she wants to see him right now.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he’s muttering, “Running off in the middle of the night like that…” He isn’t really looking at her or speaking to her, just off in his own thoughts.

She shoves him away. Not violently, but certainly not in any nice way. Joel casts her a look verging on miserable, and she wonders what she must look like right now. She wonders if he can see the dried tears on her cheeks, the pain in her eyes.

“Tell me,” she starts, in place of any sort of greeting or apology because that’s the last thing he’s entitled to, “what happened here.”

That stops him dead in his tracks, which is almost strange, because he knows exactly where they are. He must. He must understand why she came here, what she’s been searching for all of this time.

But Joel just stares, at a complete loss for words.

An ultimatum, then. Bitterness wells up in her throat and Ellie almost forgets to take another breath. “If you lie to me one more time, I’m gone. You will _never_ see me again. But if you tell me the truth, I’ll go back to Jackson… no matter what it is.”

It’s hard for her to meet his eyes, but part of her can’t look away. It’s almost like she wants to memorize his face, even though it already looks so stricken. They are never going to be the same after this, regardless of what Joel decides to say. Ellie knows, resolutely, that this is the crux of their relationship: no matter how much they love each other, or how much they pretend to be normal and they try to act like the family neither of them got to have, this has always hung over them—even if Joel seems to have always denied it.

Ellie realizes that she wants to memorize his face because she isn’t sure she’ll ever be able to meet his eyes again after this.

Joel takes a moment to piece together his thoughts. He almost looks like he’s going to cry, and Ellie prays to god that he won’t make her hate him.

“Making a vaccine… would have killed you.”

This is something she did not know, and yet it makes perfect sense.

“So I stopped them.”

And he doesn’t say anything else, because there’s nothing more to be said.

He looks at her and Ellie can’t look at him because her vision is swaying, her whole world is falling apart. She sits down, without any more strength to stand, and sobs as agony courses freely through her all at once. The tears she sheds are involuntary, different than when she usually cries but no less real. She feels grief and rage wrapping around her in a vice. Her weeping is wrought with pure anguish, and it feels like a weighted blanket that smothers her entirely.

Joel twisted her fate against her wishes. Joel stole her immunity, because it means nothing if she can’t use it to help others.

Did Riley die for nothing? Did Tess die for nothing? Sam? Henry? _Marlene?_

How many people have died for nothing, because of her? Instead of her?

Joel’s fingers graze her back, in some sort of attempt to comfort her, but revulsion rolls over her at the sensation. Ellie jerks away and stands up and snaps, “Don’t you _fucking_ touch me.”

She can’t tell if she wants him to say something else or not, but it doesn’t matter, because all he does is stare at her like he just murdered her without ever intending to, and then stares down at his shoes, unmoving.

Ellie keeps her promise and returns to Jackson, but does not see Joel for another three days. Part of her wants to worry if he made it back safely on his own, but part of her is too angry to go seek him out, and part of her knows that someone would have said something to her by now if he hadn’t.

Time keeps moving but the wounds still feel fresh. Ellie flinches every time she catches sight of Joel, down the street, passing by his front porch on her way to patrols, brushing shoulders in the dinner hall. Joel is decent enough to respect her wishes, and he never seeks her out. On a few occasions, she catches him staring at her from afar, something terrible in his eyes, something mournful, but he always looks away when she sees him. They only speak in group settings, strictly business, never in direct regard of one another.

She isn’t sure how much the rest of Jackson knows. Everyone clearly knows _something_ happened, because they were once so close but now they can hardly be found in the same room together. But she is sure that the immunity secret is still between them and Tommy and Maria. She wonders, absently, if Joel confided their conversation in his brother, or if he’ll keep that day to himself, etched into his soul, a blemish that will follow him for the rest of his life.

_(I’ll go back. But we’re done.)_

Ellie spends the next two years getting closer to her friends and getting further from Joel. Part of her aches, deeply, because he’s such an essential puzzle piece that forever has a place in her life, but every time she looks at his face she feels such a raw fury surge through her, just as new and voracious as the day he first told her the truth. She decides it’s best that she continues to avoid him, even if that causes her just as much pain.

Many nights, she does not sleep. She feels just as restless as she was before she knew the truth, and sometimes she asks herself if it was worth it. Things don’t seem to be any better, and if anything, things are worse. Would it have been better if she’d never forced him to tell her? If they had just continued to live a life of bliss, of pretending, of trying to forget the past?

No, she figures. Either way, she’s grown to resent Joel for lying. Even without knowing the truth, she resented him for lying, because she still knew he was. This way, at least, she can actually start trying to put it behind her. The anger still festers in ugly ways, it makes her feel ugly, it makes her resent not just Joel but herself even more.

But now at least she isn’t stuck on never knowing. Because, even if she can’t fully admit it to herself, Ellie wants to forgive him. She wants to desperately, even if she can’t let herself for a long time.

Someday, though, she thinks that maybe she can. Wanting reconciliation is the first step towards the act itself, after all.

* * *

Dina is really good at making things feel easy. Ellie appreciates this, even after what happened last night. She wouldn’t have blamed her, at all, if she had simply decided to never speak to her again, but instead Dina’s still here, _volunteering_ to go on patrol with Ellie, joking and talking so easily as though nothing ever happened in the first place.

Ellie decides, Dina is a really, really good friend. And she’s really, really lucky to have her in her life.

(Don’t fuck up your friendship. Don’t fuck up your friendship.)

She finds a solace in Dina. Even after Joel intervened, even after she let that get under her skin and stormed out of the dance, Dina is still here, ready to be there for Ellie every step of the way. She still isn’t really sure what last night was; though she gathers it was mostly just a drunken mistake. Ellie tries not to think about how much a silly little _drunken mistake_ is fucking with her feelings even more.

As they enter Eugene’s secret, dead weed bunker, Ellie stops briefly to balk, while Dina twirls on her heel to flash her a wide, equally surprised grin. Dina, with her dark curls that shape her face too perfectly to be real. Dina, with her big, sparkling doe eyes that make Ellie melt every time she looks at them.

_(Don’t fuck up your friendship.)_

It doesn’t take long for them to find the jar of joints, to which Dina quickly opts to smash on the ground after neither of them are able to pry it open. Ellie picks one off the floor and gets a whiff; it smells like regular weed, which is a good sign. There’s some tension keyed in her shoulders, maybe because of the pressing urgency that they’re on duty right now.

But there’s a snowstorm, right? They’re going to be stuck here for a while, with not much else to do except wait. Dina says as much as she takes the joint from Ellie and pops it in her mouth, flicking on a lighter from her pocket. She hates how attractive Dina looks as she does that.

Dina takes a hit and passes the joint to Ellie, cocking a casual smirk as they sit beside each other on the couch. “Can I ask you a question?”

Ellie almost forgets to respond, still mesmerized by the sight of Dina exhaling smoke, a warm glow in her eyes. She mutters something awkward like, “I dunno, can you?”

“Scale of one to ten. One being, absolute trash. And ten being life-altering.” Dina bites her lip and shifts a little closer to Ellie, almost leaning forward. Ellie gets flutters in her stomach at the sight and wishes the pot would kick in already. “How would you rate our kiss from last night?”

She hesitates. “Why are we still talking about this? You said it was a mistake.”

“Did I say that?”

Ellie sits up so they’re face to face, unbearably close, and she’s feeling really uncertain. Whatever is happening right now, or is about to happen, is potentially something beyond her wildest dreams that she’s been wanting for a long time now. But—but their kiss last night was a mistake. Dina is straight, and was dating Jesse only a week ago. Dina is her friend, nothing more.

_(Don’t fuck up your friendship.)_

“What are you doing?” Ellie asks, softly.

In response, she receives a sweet smile and a special, up-close look into those endlessly beautiful brown eyes. “I asked you to rate our kiss.”

She squirms and mumbles again, “I dunno.”

Dina smiles coyly and it sends chills down Ellie’s spine in a way that is exhilarating. “I’d give it a six,” she shrugs, taking another hit.

This helps Ellie regain some confidence. She can tell what Dina’s doing—that conversation was veering into very scary, intimate territory. What they need right now is light banter that allows Ellie to easily deflect and avoid her feelings. “A six? Wow.”

“Like a solid six.”

“Okay.”

“There were a lot of people around.”

“Yeah, but, a six?”

“ _Oh,_ ” Dina says, a teasing lilt to her voice that all but makes Ellie dissolve entirely. She is going to die tonight, and not by clickers, but purely from Dina being Dina. “What? I mean, now I _really_ wanna know how you’d rate it.”

Ellie huffs and inhales more smoke. How would she rate the kiss? To put it simply, there is no number she can put on it. That kiss was life-altering, and terrifying, but so, so _good,_ and despite everything else that happened between Seth and Joel and then Jesse this morning, it’s been replaying constantly on her mind. She craves more, desperately. It’s maybe the only thing that’s brought her true contented, hopefulness in a really long time.

Even if the thought of Dina liking her, let alone being in love with her, is some far-off fantasy, it’s been enough to make Ellie want to get out of bed in the morning every day for a long time. Dina makes her feel wound up in a good way, not in the way she feels when surrounded by infected, or when she makes eye contact with Joel in town.

Dina makes her feel like she’s going to implode with tension, but she _wants_ to implode from this, she _needs_ it, more than anything. It’s like she’s addicted to Dina, even when it’s in such small doses of seeing her smile every day in the most platonic of settings. It’s been adequate enough to tide Ellie over all this time. Through all the self-loathing, all the distance with Joel, all the grief—it’s Dina that gets her through, even though nothing’s ever going to come of this.

Ellie tells her, “I don’t think you do,” because if she tries to give Dina an answer then she’ll probably just end up saying something really sappy and really uncomfortable for both of them.

Dina glowers, but there’s a light to her gaze. “You’re infuriating.”

“Have you met you?” Ellie feels like she’s floating. She’s not sure if the weed has kicked in yet.

“You make me wanna go back outside to that blizzard.”

They’re whispering now.

Ellie tempts herself and leans in just a little closer. “No one is stopping you.”

Dina leans in closer, too, and says, “This better be better than a six.”

Ellie shudders.

She allows herself to indulge.

This must be a dream.

She grabs her like her life depends on it, like they’ve been kept apart for eons and Dina is her life source. They move in synchronization, Ellie caressing her face and Dina’s hands sliding up her shoulders before cupping her face, too. They inhale together, exhale together, and Ellie just about wants to devour her entirely, every inch of her skin. Dina sucks eagerly at her bottom lip, as though she’s been craving this as much as her. _There’s no way._

Ellie realizes that this has given her too much power, and she has no self-restraint. Her tongue protrudes into Dina’s mouth, swirling around, playing with her tongue, exploring, and Dina breathes heavily into her mouth, the taste of marijuana tainting it. Dina is _everywhere,_ she’s all that’s on her mind right now, as she moves to slip her hands under her shirt and tease the hem of her pants.

Is this happening? Is this really happening?

Dina starts fighting for dominance and Ellie doesn’t let her, not when she’s right where she’s wanted her for so long. She pushes her back down against the couch, straddling her hips, and for a moment relinquishes the kiss to get a good look at her face.

From here, atop Dina while she’s laying against the cushion, her hair splayed out beneath her and her face red and hot, she looks angelic. Everywhere Dina strokes her body feels like it burns, in only the most amazing ways.

Who cares if this is real? Who cares if this is a dream?

For once, Ellie lets herself have this. She lets Dina see all her facets and have her entirely. She lets herself unravel.

* * *

The anger returns as she tears through the blizzard, alone this time. Ellie isn’t really sure what it is or who it is that she’s angry at. Jesse, for barging in on her and Dina and telling them off? Tommy, for allowing Joel to be as reckless as he is and not getting back with him sooner? _Joel?_ She’s certainly mad at Joel for a lot of things, but after last night, she thought—

Maybe she’s mad at herself. For not going with Jesse to make sure Joel and Tommy got off their shift, for fucking around and getting high and having sex with Dina instead of doing her job.

(For being alive. For hurting Joel even though he hurt her.)

Ellie is tired of being so angry all the time. Her time with Dina was the most blissful she’s felt in a very long time; she can’t remember the last time she felt so thoughtlessly happy. Certainly not in years.

Maybe, tonight, she can feel just a little happier, just a little closer to a step in the right direction, when she watches a movie with Joel. She’s supposed to be trying now, isn’t she?

Except she needs to find Joel and get him back to Jackson in one piece, first. _Right._

One step at a time.

She quickly comes across that old, abandoned ski lodge not far out from Jackson. There’s a good chance Joel and Tommy took refuge in there amidst the storm, so she decides to go check it out.

When she gets inside, she’s greeted by a distant, agonizing scream. Instantly, she knows it’s Joel, and she’s hit with nausea. _Fuck._

Her breathing quickens as she begins scouring the lodge, descending down its levels like she’s entering Hell itself. Some lanterns are on, strewn about the furniture alongside a few maps and some miscellaneous luggage, and she soon discovers a collection of unoccupied, but recently used, sleeping bags. So there are others here. Hunters, maybe? Did Joel and Tommy try to duck in here to avoid the blizzard, and inadvertently walked right into enemy territory?

She can feel her chest tightening with mounting anxiety. Her heart drops as she finally finds one more staircase, which leads down to a single, basement door. The muffled groans of pain are unmistakable and more clear than before.

He’s in there.

Ellie steels herself. Now is not the time for weakness or hesitance.

As she makes her way down the stairwell, her legs feel numb and unable to sustain herself. A cool emptiness drifts through all her muscles, and she can’t really tell if it’s the weed still lingering in her system, or the feeling of dread locking up inside her, screaming at her to turn and run away. The silence of the lodge is pervaded only by Joel’s periodic moans, each one worse than the last; it sounds like he’s being beaten, over and over. Ellie tries not to let her imagination roam too far in the possibilities of _what_ he’s being beaten with.

She cracks open the door, the knob exceedingly cold, scalding her hand as she touches it, and she is met with the sight of blood. Ellie freezes in the doorway as she tries to drink it all in in the few seconds she has before she’s noticed: a woman, soaked in malice, swinging a golf club down against Joel, limp on the floor in a pool of his own blood.

_Jesus, fuck._

Her hand is instantly on her pistol, pushing through the door to get a shot at the woman, but she’s bombarded by several other people the moment her cover is blown. They fall to the ground, and Ellie manages to slash one of their faces with her switchblade, but then two more are right on her, pinning her against the floor.

She tries to heave in air but all she can do is scream at them, her eyes locking on Tommy, unconscious and also bloodied, laying just a few feet away from her. _Please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead._

A third person starts kicking at her stomach vehemently, before he’s dragged away. Ellie grunts against the pain that blossoms along her torso and concentrates back on the first woman—the one with the golf club, shooting her a deathly scowl.

Ellie roars against the taste of metal in her mouth, “You’re gonna fucking _die!_ ”

More people enter the room, asking questions and bickering amongst one another and Ellie doesn’t fucking care. Her mind is too caught in a whirlwind to really process anything other than the horror wracking her of _please don’t be dead, please don’t be dead,_ coupled with the fiery hatred for every one of these bastards she’s quickly latched onto.

None of them really pay attention to her, aside from the occasional, nervous glance, and they’re still talking but Ellie can’t concentrate on what they’re saying, not when Joel is right there, trembling, barely able to move. She begs them to let him go, _please, let him go._

She doesn’t give a shit what they’re talking about until the man that most recently entered tells the woman with the club, decisively, “End it. Now.”

Ellie sucks in a broken gasp, and her vision is already blurry but Joel is _right there,_ she needs to protect him, she needs to get him out of here. She searches his face, desperately, and hopes he’s lucid enough to see her.

Their eyes are locked, despite the blood and hair in his face. He blinks languidly.

“Joel,” she manages, “get up.” She doesn’t receive much of a response aside from his heavy blinking. His eyes are closed more than they are open. “Joel, _fucking_ get up.”

The woman lifts up the golf club, slow, measuredly. An executioner raising her axe.

Pain bursts across Ellie but it’s not physical, it runs so much deeper. It aches far into her heart, ripping through her tendons meticulously, torturously, and she sobs, “Please stop. _Please don’t do this._ ”

All of her trembles. This isn’t supposed to be happening. This isn’t supposed to be happening. Ellie was going to watch a new movie with Joel tonight, Ellie was going to find him and Tommy and bring them home safely. Ellie was going to start _trying,_ because there’s always something in her that will loathe Joel for what he did, but she also loves him so much, too much, to ever let him go.

_(I would like to try.)_

“Joel, _please_ get up!”

The club comes down hard, brutally, and blood fills Ellie’s vision. The small remnants of fight left in Joel leave him, and he stops moving. He stops breathing. He stops—he stops—

_(I’d like that.)_

She stops feeling. She feels too much all at once. She feels so cold.

She can’t stop crying. Her ears are ringing and there’s too much blood everywhere and a man steps up to Joel _—get away from him, fucking bastard—_ and spits on his corpse. Corpse. Corpse.

_(Okay. I’ll see you around.)_

“I’ll fucking _kill you,_ ” she howls, and she can’t see, she can’t feel, it’s all too much. The words keep tumbling out of her lips, drenched in blood. “ _I’ll fucking kill you, I’ll fucking kill you._ ”

_(Yep.)_

A boot finds its way to her face, and everything falls dark, all at once.


	2. Chapter 2

She thinks that going to Seattle will fix things. When they left, a lot of it felt like it was for Tommy, and she’s sure Maria at least partially believed that. But Maria also knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop her and Dina from leaving, regardless. Maria knew that if it wasn’t Tommy to go after Joel’s killers first, it would’ve been Ellie.

Maybe ‘fix’ isn’t the right word.

Nothing will ever _fix_ the image ingrained in her mind of Joel, bleeding, motionless, his head bashed in and nearly unrecognizable. Nothing will ever _fix_ the grief that weighs her down every second of every day.

But Ellie also knows that if she doesn’t try and find some sort of closure for herself, her pain will only worsen. And somehow she tricks herself into thinking, _Joel would do the same._

Would he? Five years in Jackson softened Joel. He was starting to become more of a human again, vulnerable, loving. His defenses were falling and there was nothing wrong with that; it was exactly what he needed. Ellie thinks of forgotten guitar notes piercing through the night, a moth chasing the lantern at the door, and a warm cup of coffee on the porch.

(Maybe he wouldn’t.)

No, it doesn’t matter. Because Ellie would. Ellie _is._

She will kill every last one of those motherfuckers, even if it kills her too.

Her wrath almost feels sentient, stirring around incessantly in her chest, always fighting against sleep, starved for bloodshed. It pulls her along on a leash, it clouds her vision and thoughts. Sometimes it scares her, but Ellie tries not to let it, because she convinces herself so resolutely that this is what she has to do. This is what she has to do. They left her no other choice.

“Where’s Abby?”

Everything is so red, and Ellie can’t tell if it’s from the alarm light or the heat boiling beneath her skin, urging her to put an end to this already.

Nora shudders from where she leans against the door, completely helpless. “I’m fucking dead, anyway. Why would I tell you anything?”

Ellie crouches down in front of her; anxiety is vibrating erratically inside of her, and she struggles to grip the crowbar in her hand securely. “Because I can make it quick, or I can make it so much worse.”

The woman nearly sobs, and she feels no remorse at the sight. Ellie feels _animalistic._ She can’t stop imagining the red light painted across Nora’s face morphing into dripping carmine, thick and fresh.

“Think about what he did. How many people are dead because of him?”

And—fuck, she knows, she knows, she _knows._ She’s spent the last several years contemplating this, hating him almost as much as them for what he did. And that last night in Jackson, before— _before,_ Ellie thought she’d finally grown to move past her hatred. Anger is so exhausting, she’s found, and yet it’s managed to manifest itself in an even uglier form here in Seattle.

She just wants to go to sleep. But she knows that she can’t truly rest until she feeds the ugly creature inside her, even just a little taste.

Ellie rights herself and mutters, “It’s your last chance.”

“I’m not giving up my friend,” Nora scowls, a firmness set in her gaze despite her rattling breaths and fidgety posture.

The wrath in her gut swells. Ellie thinks of the lodge, thinks of being held down and forced to watch. She thinks of the ruthlessness etched across each one of those fuckers’ faces, the embittered joy they shared in their victory as they beat each grueling inch of life out of Joel. Those motherfuckers. Those— _they_ are the true monsters, here. Ellie is righting their wrongs, avenging Joel.

This is what he would want. Joel would do the same thing.

(Deep down, she isn’t entirely sure she believes that.)

She takes in several heavy breaths that grate against her throat and cut up her lungs, barbed with anguish. Squeezing the crowbar with both hands, Ellie sees Joel in herself, holding the weapon in her stead, a mad fury in his features that move for him, just as her own anger does.

Because this is just what Joel did, isn’t it? He slaughtered countless people—and not just soldiers, but nurses, civilian workers. He mowed through the hospital and stole humanity’s last chance of a cure and moved fucking mountains just to save her. Because at that moment, nothing in the world mattered more to Joel than Ellie.

As much as a small part of her will always loathe him for that, she can’t help but admit that she understands now, in some twisted way. The wrath that curls in her fingers and roars through her bloodstream was spurred from something once much more compassionate and tender. It comes from warm hugs and giraffes and lies crafted from love.

Ellie swings the crowbar down and thinks only of this, maybe because it’s the only way to persuade herself that what she’s doing is right.

Red sprays across her shirt, and Nora falls completely to the ground, and Ellie’s hands are shaking and the red light is burning her skin. Nora weeps freely, and the side of her head is bashed in and bleeding excessively, red streaming down her limp body. In this instant, Ellie feels the wrath within herself _preen._

She brings the crowbar down again; coldness frosts over her.

For a moment, the red fades to the quiet glow of the lodge, and the crowbar in her hands is a golf club, and Nora is not Nora. The person at her feet is clinging onto life, face bruised and busted and torn apart, and they cannot even speak anymore—just lay on the ground and wait for the final blow.

For a moment, Ellie stops, sickness turning in her stomach. For a moment, the person at her feet is simply someone she hates, someone who has done a lot of bad and deserves atonement that they’ll never have because forgiveness does not come easy in this world.

She closes her eyes, and all she sees is Joel, motionless at her feet, as she wields a golf club over his head.

Ellie opens her eyes again, and she feels tears streaming down her face as Nora moans out brokenly, hardly coherent, begging for it all to stop. Ellie freezes, breathes in, and tells her she’ll make it all stop once she tells her where Abby is. Nora wails like a child and Ellie is pure ice; a few moments pass as Nora tries to compose herself, just a shell of a human, before she tells Ellie of the aquarium. Her words are soft and heavy, like each syllable is almost too much effort to enunciate.

And then Nora just looks at her for a long moment, her face wet with blood and tears, mottled and deformed, and finally she lowers her head and shuts her eyes. Maybe she mutters something else, something like, _please just make it quick,_ but Ellie’s ears are ringing too loudly to really process much more information other than _aquarium, Abby’s in the aquarium._

Ellie struggles to gain a firm grip on the crowbar, and a firm grip on her senses. The same defeat she saw in Joel at the lodge is present here, in the near-corpse curled on the ground before her, arms quivering beneath her, blood slipping down the bridge of her nose to the floor like the rhythmic drip of a leaky pipe, rusted beyond repair.

She cries out and swings down, right into the back of Nora’s skull. Nora stops moving, stops twitching and rasping for air, and an absolutely depersonalizing sensation sweeps over Ellie at the sound of squelching flesh and cracking bone.

For a long time, all she sees is red.

Even after she gets out of the hospital, and enters the darkness of late-night Seattle, the edges of her vision feel tinged with blood. It dries and crusts over her skin and clothes, but the warm dampness of fresh iron doesn’t leave her, nor does its sharp, pungent stench.

She is probably a little too careless as she walks through the empty streets, but she figures absently that the nightfall will provide sufficient protection. There isn’t enough left in her to try and take cover, or cut through backroads that might keep her more hidden in the case of running into unfriendly faces. Instead she takes the most direct, open route, stalking slowly along the asphalt, her thoughts whirling around with numbness.

Her hands won’t stop shaking the entire time.

Briefly, Ellie hesitates as she finally reaches the door of the theater. She isn’t sure that she wants Dina or Jesse to see her in the state she’s in, and contemplates sleeping somewhere else just until daybreak so she can recuperate. But, selfishly, the angry thing knotting in her chest craves reprieve now; it craves warmth and safety and friends and _Dina._

_Fuck._ She hammers her fist against the door, keeping it clenched as tightly as she can to stop the tremors; it doesn’t do much to help. “It’s me.” She flinches at the way her voice cracks.

The door swings open in seconds, and Dina already has her arms wrapped around her before she can react. Then she pulls away, trying to get a good look at Ellie. It’s hard for her to meet Dina’s eyes when she knows how terrible she must look. _Fuck._

“Ellie—are you okay?” Dina asks, worry blatant in her expression. Ellie nods mechanically.

“Christ,” Jesse says from inside. “Is that your blood?”

She’s beckoned through the door, and Dina closes it behind her. The draft inside is dry and overbearing and instantly eases some of the tension in her muscles.

They’re watching her expectantly, and Ellie doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s hanging on by a thread right now and all she can bring herself to do is focus on the mission so they can be done with this. Still shaking, she fumbles for a moment with the map, trying to piece together an articulate thought. “She’s hiding out in the—in this aquarium.”

She points to the specific spot, glancing anxiously between them both, and Dina is right beside her, staring at her hand that won’t stop trembling. It won’t just—stop, stop, stop, _just stop._ Fuck, she should’ve waited till morning to come back.

Gingerly, Dina takes the map. She doesn’t seem to really care about Abby or the aquarium, and Jesse is silent, stoic. Dina is only focused on _her;_ the map is an afterthought. “Okay. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

A hand glides up against Ellie’s back and starts to guide her back towards the stage. Maybe Dina passes the map to Jesse as they leave, but Ellie isn’t really sure. The redness in her vision has died down, succumbing to a gray fuzziness that digs down her throat and snuffs out any semblance of feeling she fruitlessly clutches onto.

When they reach the back room, Dina helps her sit on a stool, and moves around busily for a few minutes as she gathers medical supplies and a bucket of water to clean her wounds. Then she helps her strip down, removing her backpack and carefully peeling away her layers of clothes until she’s totally naked, aside from a pair of underwear.

This is different than when they were in Eugene’s hideout. Because Dina is not stripping too, there is no excitement between them at the moment, no implications of sex or lust. And yet, Ellie feels a gratifying sense of warmth when she looks up to meet Dina’s gaze, which returns to her a look of something so loving and caressing that it makes Ellie want to cry. Somehow, here, she feels exponentially more vulnerable and cared for at the same time.

Dina takes a seat behind her, fussing momentarily with her pile of supplies before soaking a rag in the water. Ellie fixates on the wall in front of her, fists balled in her lap, as she hunches her shoulders and tries to steel herself. Even now, as bare and naked as she is before Dina, she’s so fucking scared of unraveling before her. She doesn’t want to cry. She’s tired of hurting. She just needs everything to _stop._

The rag finds her back, and Ellie exhales as coolness runs over her skin, dabbing lightly at the various cuts and bruises riddling her body. Dina scrubs as gently as possible at the blood, and Ellie doesn’t think about how much of it isn’t even hers.

She sucks in a trembling breath and tries not to close her eyes, because every time she does, she sees red and fog and a body bleeding out on the floor. She hears _please don’t do this, let him go,_ broken sobs, desperate final gasps of air before being savagely bludgeoned into nothingness. She feels pain in her ribs, iron dribbling down her lips from being kicked in the face, slick red coating her wholly.

“I made her talk.”

“Hey,” Dina whispers, urgent not to silence her but to alleviate her pain as swiftly as she can. “It’s okay.”

Arms wrap around her from behind, and Dina leans her face against Ellie’s shoulder. She is purity and love and she’s too good, too strong, for Ellie. Despite everything she’s still here, cleaning her wounds, holding her, staying by her side even though Ellie’s dragged her into this danger, this agony.

Dina shouldn’t be having to hide out here, in the middle of a warzone, sick and pregnant. Dina shouldn’t have to shoulder her problems and tend to her wounds like she is.

Ellie lifts a hand to grasp Dina’s arm, still wrapped around her. She’s still shaking, and her cheeks are wet with fresh tears. “I don’t wanna lose you.”

And Dina murmurs, “Good,” before pressing a kiss to the back of her neck.

She wipes furiously at her eyes, but there’s too much emotion springing up all at once for Ellie to stop them from overflowing. She can’t stop thinking of the crowbar in her hand, blood everywhere—Joel on the floor—the emptiness she felt, walking back to the theater—

“You’re not a burden,” Ellie tells her, in a small and fractured voice. She can feel her shoulders trembling more heavily now, as Dina squeezes her in her hold. “I never should’ve said that. You—You’re the only thing keeping me together right now.”

“Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, El, just breathe.”

Dina finishes cleaning her over the course of the next half hour, taking her time as she works around Ellie’s entire torso and then her face, gently swiping at all the blood and occasionally pressing her lips to Ellie, soft and wet and loving, all over her body. Sometimes, a certain injury calls for a bit of alcohol or a bandage, but luckily tonight there is no need for stitches.

Once done, Dina moves to sit in Ellie’s lap, straddling her hips, and she leans in to hug her and burrow her head under her chin. Ellie brings her arms around Dina, too, and lets her eyes fall shut, fatigue sinking deep into her bones.

(Metal, heavy in her hands. Swollen eyes squinting at her miserably. Blood pooling around the corpse, foul, rotting.)

_(Joel, fucking get up.)_

Ellie cries until she can’t anymore, and Dina walks her to their makeshift bed, and they finally fall asleep there in each other’s arms. Even as she rests, though, the coldness never leaves her.

* * *

She saw it in the way Dina asked her, “You’re gonna go now?” the night they found Jesse. Ellie was already scooping up her belongings back into her bag, ready to set out towards the hospital, and she was trying to ignore the quiet buzzing on her bicep, from where Dina kissed her fresh stitches. She couldn’t tell if the feeling was coming from the idle pain or the soothing memory of Dina’s soft lips at her skin.

“Yeah, we have a lead.”

But Dina was persistent that night. “At least just wait for Jesse to rest up—”

“She could be gone by then.”

“ _Ellie._ ”

“We know her location,” she insisted, and then tacked on with bleak hope, “maybe Tommy does too.”

She saw it in the way Dina dropped her gaze, shaking her head mutely at nothing. That’s what she’d told Ellie when she pried, anyways: What? _Nothing._ Good.

The itch in the back of Ellie’s mind knew that it was more than just _nothing,_ as Dina walked her to the front door of the theater and secured it behind her, and Ellie stepped out into the balmy drizzle of a morning so early the sun had yet to stir. The light rain only served to sting against her fresh wounds, and something in her ached to just turn around and go back inside and collapse into Dina’s arms.

But she didn’t turn around. She’d pushed on until she found the hospital and Nora and used the crowbar to—

Ellie knew it wasn’t just nothing, but did not speak of that morning later that night when Dina tended to her newest accumulation of injuries from the hospital, naked and bare and misty-eyed.

Now, the following morning, Ellie sees it again as Jesse tells her, “I get why you came out here, but we gotta take her back. She needs real care and she’s not gonna get that—”

And, fuck, she knows. “Yeah, I know.” A shaky breath, and then again, mutely, “I know.”

The guilt has been worming its way through her system since the night Dina told her she was pregnant, and it hasn’t gone away. Some of the pressure lifted yesterday when she went to the hospital, knowing Jesse would be here to stay with Dina, but it’s still clung to her regardless.

It’s been at war, the guilt, with the inherent wrath that’s burrowed into her heart like a parasite since _that day._ Since the lodge and the golf club and—and everything else. Over the past several weeks, from the start of their journey from Jackson to Seattle, even before she knew Dina was pregnant, the guilt has cleaved against her resolve constantly, raking away at her will to keep going. The last thing she wants is to put her loved ones in danger for something she never really intended to get Dina or Jesse or Tommy roped into. But now they’re all here, weak or tired or alone or some combination of the three, caught in a warzone.

Ellie wants, terribly, to go back home to Jackson and keep Dina and the baby safe. She wants to let go of Seattle, but the rage keeps festering, growing every day, and she finds herself slipping as time goes on. She sees it in her dreams of red and screaming and death, she sees it in how she can hardly bring her pencil to her journal anymore, as she tries to sketch the contours of _his_ face.

(She gets close. The memory of his face has always been, will always be, imprinted in her mind, but before she can ever attempt to sketch his eyes all she can think of is blood and bruising and _please let him go_ and she just _can’t._ )

She knows that she won’t be able to leave here until she finishes what she came to do. But she can’t bring herself to voice this to Jesse, so she settles on mentioning her other pressing worry of the fact that they still haven’t found Tommy.

“Maybe you could take her back,” Ellie says, gently, but the look she casts to him is pleading. _Please, take her home before she gets hurt._ Before the baby gets hurt. Before she has to watch Ellie unravel more than she already has.

Jesse shakes his head. “She’s not gonna leave without you.”

And even though she knows this, she’s always known this, hearing that almost knocks the wind out of her. It makes it too real. Ellie feels the guilt thrashing violently against her wrath but the wrath does not relent. It won’t ever relent until it tastes blood, and it’s at this moment that a deep wave of self-loathing crests over her and soaks her to the bone.

“Yeah,” she exhales.

She sees it, again, as she sits on the edge of the couch and watches Dina rest for a few minutes before she has to wake her up. As she sleeps, her face is screwed up in discomfort and stress, and it nearly tears Ellie to shreds. Ellie lightly shakes her awake and she sees it again, more vividly and painfully, as Dina blinks open her eyes and smiles at her so purely, as though she’s completely forgotten their circumstances for a moment and knows only Ellie as she mumbles an affectionate, “Hi.”

Ellie retracts her arm and greets back, “Hey, babe,” averting her gaze. It hurts too much now to meet Dina’s eyes. “I need you to lock the door for us.”

A grimace befalls Dina’s face again, the lonesome delight briefly twinkling in her expression becoming clouded with exhaustion and sickness and grief. Ellie wants to die, and she hates herself even more as Dina says, firmly, “Okay.” No arguments. No hesitation.

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

Ellie sees it, once more, later that day, when she and Jesse are both tired and they can’t agree on their next step. When Jesse openly wears his concern on his sleeve for Tommy, and insists on what she knows deep down is probably the more humane thing to do, but the spite in her refuses to agree on.

“What if he’s in trouble?”

“He can take care of himself.”

Jesse looks at her with contempt; a rare color to find on his face. “Jesus Christ.”

“The best way to help Tommy is to go after Abby,” Ellie presses, and she can’t tell if she really believes this or if it’s just her conscience trying to justify the raging fury lurking in her chest that does not yield to compromise or anything less than violence and triumph. She scowls as Jesse looks at her in near disbelief. “You do this and I’m not saving your ass again.”

She sees it, and it hits her and consumes her all at once, as Jesse stares at her coldly and mutters, “I really hope you make it,” before taking his leave.

Ellie realizes in this instant what she sees, and it is this: her loved ones are all reaching their breaking points, and although they all know they’re just appeasing her bloodlust, they’re still here because they love her too much not to be.

The guilt mutates into something much larger and encompassing and ugly, and it drapes over her with a deep weight she feels in each step as she pushes onward to the aquarium. It seems to worsen as she gets closer, and a deep dread starts to instill itself in her at the prospect of finally finding Abby today. She tries not to think about it; just focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, and decides she’ll figure out the rest when she gets there.

But the guilt is too overbearing to not let her mind wander. She decides, without any doubt or reluctance, that she hates herself, as she cruelly slaughters the dog that jumps her in the aquarium. Amidst roaming down the halls and ignoring the fact that her hands are shaking again, she thinks, she hates the wrath that drives her to do all of this—but she hates herself even more for abetting it.

She knows, when she pushes through a set of doors and sees two new people, that they were at the lodge. This is only reinforced when they mention Abby in their hushed argument, and somehow hearing that name alone is enough to reignite a spitting flame in Ellie. She tells them to put their hands up as soon as they turn to see her, gun aimed right at them, and they comply. Initially all she sees in their expressions is fear, but it’s quickly followed by recognition.

“Where’s Abby?”

“You’re that girl from Jackson,” the man says.

Ellie doesn’t have time for conversation. “Tell me where she went.”

“How do we know you won’t kill us?” the woman asks, and she sounds significantly more scared than her friend. The wrath in Ellie’s chest rumbles, savagely, _good._

The man is more steady. “You give her what she wants and we’re dead.”

Ellie does not waver, and tells them, “You guys can survive this. I just need her.”

“Bullshit.”

_Motherfucker._ Ellie has half the mind to not blow the man’s brains out right then. Instead, she takes in a deep breath, and keeping her pistol trained on the man, beckons over the woman as she pulls out her map. The woman remains frozen, and red flashes in the edges of Ellie’s vision.

“ _Fucking_ get over here.”

She does, slowly, like she’s being walked to a guillotine. Ellie instructs her to point to where Abby is on the map, and says that the man will do so after, and that it better fucking match up.

The woman agrees but the man is not happy about this. He tries to protest and the woman argues back and he starts to step closer, trying to plead with Ellie, trying to compromise, and she won’t have it. She screams at them both and they stagger backwards. They’re pale, and their eyes are both blown wide, and the woman’s hands are trembling as she holds them up in the air.

Ellie tries to make the woman point on the map again, but she doesn’t, and Ellie can hardly focus anymore as she takes her aim off the man which is fucking stupid, but it’s too late, he’s lunging at her, wrestling for the gun, he’s leaving her no other choice—she fires into his chest and red seeps into his shirt, dark and viscous.

Instantly, the woman is outraged and tries to attack Ellie with her knife, but she’s able to push the woman to the floor and stab her in the neck with it first.

Not letting down her guard, Ellie nearly throws herself backward to grab her gun again. She aims it at the woman who has fallen very still, and then turns back to the man, prone on the ground but still gurgling on his own blood, grasping at nothing in the air.

He’s trying to get out words but it comes out silent and slurred, so Ellie shoves the gun to his throat and demands him to tell her where Abby is.

“She’s…”

“Where the _fuck_ is she?!”

He struggles to even keep his eyes open, blood spilling from his lips. “Pr—pregnant…”

Ellie takes a step back, hardly able to get in a breath of air. What the fuck—what— _no._ He can’t mean Abby, that wouldn’t make sense, why—she strides back to the woman, already dead, motionless and cold as more red saps out of her neck.

“No, no, no, no,” she murmurs, as she rolls the corpse on its back and unclasps its jacket and—and there’s a noticeable hump, a few months along, the corpse—the _woman_ is pregnant, _was_ pregnant, and Ellie just— _she just—_

Slowly, she feels herself crumbling to her knees, ice flooding her veins and locking up her muscles, tightening her breath. She shuts her eyes and clutches her chest because she can’t fucking breathe, she can’t—she can’t stop seeing _Dina,_ laying on the ground, blood pooled around her, dying, dead, because of her, _all because of her_ —fuck—

She heaves desperately for air, greedily rasping through sobs that tear up her throat like shards of glass, and she can’t think, can’t see, can’t feel, can’t feel _anything_ except the overwhelming sensation of ice spreading all over her. She feels herself falling and she can’t stop it, it’s all so much all at once. The woman before her is not a murderer but a mother, someone trying to survive and keep her child alive too, and that’s all that Dina wants but Ellie’s going to get her killed because she can’t fucking stop chasing after ghosts, she’s going to die, she’s dead, _Dina’s dead, oh fuck—_

Someone approaches from her right and Ellie is instantly on her feet, gun ready, despite the blurriness in her vision and the air caught in her throat and the ice seeping into her body.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Tommy. It’s _Tommy,_ and he’s alive and here, before her. He holds a hand up to her placatively. “Hey.” She watches him drink in the scene around them, the _massacre,_ the disaster she’s wrought on these people, the corpses— _she’s so tired of seeing red—_

Tommy clasps a hand on her shoulder and it’s momentarily grounding. Ellie tries to restore her breathing to normal as her world gradually stops swaying. She whispers, tears in her eyes, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” he says, and he doesn’t even really seem sure of what’s happening but he looks at her openly and reassuringly. Jesse’s here, too, posture tense as he eyes the dead bodies. Tommy ushers them both out, grabbing Ellie’s arm and walking her to the door. She feels unbearably cold and she can’t help but look back at the corpse, the woman, the _mother,_ and feel sickness twist and writhe around in her stomach.

The walk back to the theater is quiet. Tommy and Jesse speak softly to each other, sometimes to her, but she finds herself unresponsive. When they do talk, it’s only to warn one another of infected up ahead, or to suggest cutting through a certain building, or to occasionally check up on Ellie.

At one point, Jesse asks if they want to stop and camp out for the night. Ellie says that she doesn’t want to stop, and neither of them argue with her, even though they both look drained. She nearly tells them they can stop if they want to, just that she won’t be able to until she’s back with Dina again—but they continue to follow after her without another word before she can.

When they get back, Ellie doesn’t sleep. She lays backstage on the mattress with Dina, who almost instantly falls asleep there after she lets the three of them inside and gives them each a long hug.

Ellie, however, can’t keep her eyes shut for longer than a few seconds without seeing red, a corpse on the floor, blood gushing from it as its life leeches away. It’s not just Joel she sees now, but Tommy, Jesse, Dina. Every time she closes her eyes one of them dies and every time, it’s on her. _Every time._

She hates herself.

Several hours drift by in which she can only lay beside Dina in bed and watch her sleep. When she’s too restless to keep laying there, though, she forces herself upright, and doesn’t miss the way Dina reaches out a hand unconsciously to grab at the now empty spot beside her. The sight makes Ellie ache, and it takes a lot of self-restraint to not lift Dina’s hand in hers and press her lips to her knuckles. She doesn’t allow herself, because she knows she doesn’t deserve to.

Ellie stands up, instead, and looks at Dina a moment longer from afar. She’s been eyeing her abdomen all night, despite herself, and running her fingers over it as though she could feel the fetus already growing in there. Dina isn’t even showing yet, but Ellie can’t get it off her mind. She hasn’t been able to, not since—

_(She’s… pr—pregnant…)_

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

Ellie forces herself to leave and find Jesse and Tommy, and let Dina rest. Because Dina deserves rest. And Ellie certainly doesn’t deserve to lay here, with her.

* * *

Tasting death sharp on her tongue, Ellie reels, blood spilling from her busted nose as her vision spins and she tries to regain her bearings. Dina has gotten the jump on Abby, but that advantage is cut short when an arrow lances right through her shoulder and she falls to the ground with a cry. Abby clutches Dina’s head and smacks her face against the concrete once, twice, and Ellie thinks, nearly begs, _please stop taking them from me,_ as she lays there uselessly and watches.

All she can get out is the pained repetition of, “Stop, stop, stop.”

She thinks of Jesse and Tommy, back in the front of the theater, abandoned and cold and motionless, both shot in the head. She looks at Dina, now, as she tries and fails to do anything to make Abby stop, and feels the wrath stew in her gut alongside a terrible, reborn grief.

Dina isn’t even dead yet but Ellie’s already grieving. Jesse and Tommy must be, already. Joel _is,_ already.

“She had nothing to do with this,” she groans, her body throbbing all over, anchored to the floor. Abby yanks Dina up by her hair and twists her around so Ellie can see her pressing a knife to her throat. Ellie’s eyes burn; her mouth is filled with blood.

_Please,_ she wants to say, against what little dignity she still has, _please stop taking them from me._

But there is a searing rage in Abby’s gaze that must burn just as severely as whatever’s painted across Ellie’s face. _You killed my friends._ Ellie supposes, grimly, that they’re in the same boat, her and Abby. Is this her repentance? Her punishment, her atonement?

(When will all of the red fade? When will everyone stop bleeding?)

Maybe Ellie deserves this. To lose Joel, all her friends, Dina. To watch the love of her life be beaten into oblivion. Maybe it’s what she gets for letting herself succumb to the wrath, for killing all of Abby’s friends in the same way Abby’s killing hers.

Because Ellie did. Kill them all. She beat Nora as ruthlessly as Abby had Joel; she stole the life of that mother, just as Abby wants to steal Dina’s.

Ellie has lost her right to deserve much of anything, but this—this loss, _this_ she deserves.

(Did Joel deserve what he got? Did he deserve to be killed?)

All she’s known for so long is an endless cycle of hurt, of red, that keeps hurling her forward but leaving her so fucking tired. And yet, she hasn’t ever succeeded in dragging herself out of it, and maybe she will never be able to.

_(I would like to try.)_

She isn’t sure how she ever brought herself to confront Joel like she did, that night. Not with all that festering anger still escalating in her. It’s never fully left, even now, but she’d still stood beside him on that porch, on that night, and told him more firmly than she’d ever known anything else that she wanted to forgive. And, saying it out loud, she’d almost believed it.

Watching Abby kill Dina as slowly as she does, Ellie only sees herself. If Abby wasn’t going to kill them all, Ellie would have. Not ever purposefully; but she’d always sort of come to know, in these past several days, that she was going to get Tommy and Jesse and Dina killed some way or another. She stares at the red that glides down Dina’s forehead, drenching her in it, and can’t help but think she’s already almost finished the job—even if Abby’s the one about to slice her open.

None of them would be here if it wasn’t for Ellie. If she had never let that wrath get the best of her, maybe she’d be back in Jackson right now, watching a movie with Dina like normal girlfriends do. And Jesse would greet them in the morning for their patrol, and Tommy would invite them all for dinner the following evening with Maria, and Ellie would leave that night feeling melancholic as she stopped once more by Joel’s grave on her walk home.

But instead they’re all here, they’re all dead or going to die, and Ellie brought this upon them and now she’s only paying for her actions.

Even as much as she hates Abby to her very core, Ellie can’t say she really blames her. She empathizes, in the way that she resonates with the same anger that seems to fuel Abby, her lust for vengeance, while simultaneously wanting to rip Abby to pieces for ever acting upon those urges.

That’s probably hypocritical. Ellie does not care.

All she cares about right now is that it’s happening all over again. Her loved one is being murdered right before her, while she is helpless to lay here and beg and watch. The familiarity of this situation is sickening, and it makes her wish _she_ were the one with the knife to her throat so it could all just be over.

She looks for a long time at Dina’s face, slack and bloodied. She sobs, brokenly, “She’s pregnant.”

Abby only briefly hesitates, before she just sneers, “ _Good,_ ” in the most malignant way that makes Ellie’s insides twist up in agony. Then Abby pulls at Dina’s hair to bear her neck against the knife, if anything more committed than before to slitting it. Ice rolls over Ellie and locks her in a glacier of numbness and combustible pain all at once.

Would Ellie have done the same? If she had known prior to killing that woman that she was pregnant, would she still have done it? Could she have ever justified it as self-defense, as an eye for an eye, when she was the one that chased them to Seattle, hungry for the red, desperate to qualm her own grief by inevitably leaving a long trail of it in her wake?

In the end, it is the child that makes Abby stop. The monster drops Dina to the ground, and tells Ellie, _Don’t ever let me see you again,_ as Ellie chokes on her own blood, overwhelmed with too many emotions and too many tears suddenly welling in her eyes to really see clearly.

After they leave, Ellie is left to lay there and stare at Dina, who has long since lost consciousness. Ellie is unable to move, but she can’t tell if she’s inhibited by her tattered body or her decaying thoughts.

There is a long period of time, as they both remain, barely, where Ellie wonders if Dina is going to die here anyways, if Ellie will die here too, and if not, what next?

She finds they must face _next_ when she comes to after an unknown amount of time has elapsed, in which she’s drifted in and out of lucidity, wakefulness always greeting her with an aching body and a pounding head and the sight of Dina collapsed beside her. But eventually it’s Dina shaking her awake, tears and blood intermingling as they pour from her torrentially.

_Next_ comes, without permission, as they must fix themselves up the best they can, and then Tommy—because he miraculously survived—and bury Jesse in the nicest spot they can find before making their way back to Jackson, because they can’t possibly drag his corpse all the way back on foot.

_Next_ comes, despite Ellie, as Dina’s pregnancy looms over them like a great shadow and Ellie fears with every passing day that she won’t be able to hold herself together for her family. She feels like a ticking time bomb, like the dam has been patched up since it last broke, but it’s just barely keeping itself together, on the brink of bursting and overflowing entirely.

She tries to move on. She tries to forget. But just like before Seattle, it continues to permeate every waking moment of her consciousness.

They move to the farm because Ellie can’t stand to stay in Jackson, she can’t stand the way Maria looks at her every time they cross paths, she can’t stand being in the same room as Jesse’s parents, she can’t stand even looking in the direction of Joel’s house, seeing everyone dropping off new bouquets of flowers or little trinkets they find on patrols or loving notes.

Ellie thinks the farm will be good for her, for them, because it can give her time to heal. But then it continues to plague her. Some nights she wanders downstairs and almost thinks she sees the silhouette of braided hair and broad shoulders, a corpse at its feet, backlit by the moonlight gleaming through the window. Some days, Jesse’s parents visit, or it’s Maria, eventually Tommy once he’s back on his feet, and for months none of them speak of Joel or Seattle but it weighs heavy on them all, a sour aftertaste in the back of their throats despite how much they try to ignore it.

Some days, Ellie catches Dina cradling JJ in her lap, murmuring about nothing to him, but then there’s a mention of Jesse on her lips, and hearing it always hurts. Dina tells her, one night, that JJ might like to hear about his grandfather, and that maybe it’d be good for Ellie to talk about _him,_ but the thought of doing that makes her feel cold and wrong.

Some days, when house chores are slow and the sun is particularly harsh, she lingers around inside with the other two, sipping on ice water and waiting for nightfall to deluge the heat with cool breezes and drifting moths lost to the dark; it is on these days when there’s nothing else to do with her hands that Ellie itches for an outlet. It is also on these days that Ellie cannot bring herself to ever touch the guitar in her studio, nor can she bring herself to attempt to sketch his face—instead, she lets the sickly words floating around in her head flow onto paper in dark, blotchy ink.

Her hands always shake as she writes, and she never feels any better once she’s gotten it out.

One afternoon, she corners a wild boar in a gas station while combing through the nearby town for game. An arrow is already jutting from its haunch, her own work, and its calloused skin is scraped and bleeding from squeezing through the shattered glass door leading inside. She locates it easily, following the sounds of pitiful squeals and streaks of red on the floor to find it curled up in the corner, waiting for release.

It screams, trembles, bleeds, and Ellie has three more arrows in her quiver but her hands are stuck at her sides, unable to draw her bow. Instead, she leaves, and she still hears its cries ringing in her head even when she’s gotten back to the farm. She can’t stop thinking about how she’s worse than Abby; at least Abby had the guts to finally just put an end to it.

Going to Santa Barbara is inevitable.

She hates herself for it, but she also hates herself more for staying. On the farm, Ellie is nothing more than an empty husk, a skeleton pretending it still knows how to eat and sleep and breathe and function. The wrath ties itself around her neck like a noose, lures her towards the front door every day. She wishes, deeply, that she had the capacity to give Dina and JJ everything and more, but she knows she’s living on borrowed time, just going through the motions, just trying to keep herself together one more day.

Ellie knows, no matter how long she hides here, it will never leave her until she finishes what she started and Abby is the one dead at her feet.

Dina knows this too. She must, even as she looks at Ellie with exhaustion set in her features and tells her, “Come back to bed. We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay?”

But this is the first time in so long that the constant thrum, the scalding buzz beneath Ellie’s skin, has felt just slightly quelled. She’s just so fucking tired, she just wants this to be over. And it’s never really been over, even though they’ve pretended.

“I have to finish it.”

“You don’t owe Tommy anything.” But that’s not what this is about, and they both know it.

Ellie shakes her head, and it feels sunken with lead, poisoned, clouded. “I don’t sleep. I don’t eat. I’m—I’m not like you, Dina.”

Frustration washes over Dina’s face instantly as she asks in turn, “What? You think this is _easy?_ For you, and for him, I _deal_ with it.”

And Ellie knows this, because she’s been doing the same, but she’s tired of just dealing. Of just settling. She knows she will never rest until she does this, she won’t ever let herself. But seeing the confusion, the betrayal, the fear in Dina’s eyes, still makes her ache. Ellie knows what this means—what entails of going to Santa Barbara: losing everything else she’s built for herself.

“I love you,” she starts, because she doesn’t know what else to say.

“Then prove it. _Stay._ ”

She almost feels like two people trapped in a singular vessel, constantly warring with each other, constantly dredging one another through despair. There is Ellie, the one that loves space and dinosaurs, who thinks about Joel every day and is tired of fighting and is in love with Dina, who would give her life for Dina and their son without a second thought. And then there is this other person, who she doesn’t know what to call, but they ache constantly, they grieve constantly, they only know red and the reprieve of ending a life to preserve their own. She thinks that this person has had Ellie in a stranglehold since that last night in the theater, and that they don’t plan on letting go until she does the same to Abby.

Pleadingly, she searches Dina’s face, imploring her to understand because she can’t explain why this person inside her could ever convince her to leave behind everything she loves. Dina looks back at her, equally pleading, and Ellie can only whisper, “I can’t.”

“So what? I’m just supposed to sit here and wait for you for god knows how long, just thinking you’re fucking dead the entire time?”

Ellie hates herself. “I don’t plan on dying.”

“Yeah, well neither did Jesse. Or Joel.”

Hearing that is a punch to the face.

_Fuck._

Ellie grabs her backpack.

“Hey, stop,” Dina holds her face, and all of her anger is gone, she’s just softness and love and _Dina_ , and Ellie can’t help but stop and marvel at what powerful of a force in this universe it must be, this wrath, to compel her to ever leave Dina. “Hey. Come on. We’ve got a family. She doesn’t get to be more important than that.”

But it’s not about importance. Dina and JJ are the only things in the entire world that are important to Ellie. Abby is not important. Abby is something she needs to sever from herself before she forgets entirely what importance still _means._

And, they both know this. Ellie grasps Dina’s wrist, her hands still cupping Ellie’s face, and it’s now that she notices the wetness of Dina’s cheeks.

Dina turns her back to her. “I’m not gonna do this again.”

Ellie also knows that severing Abby from her life means severing the important things, too.

“That’s up to you.”

She leaves, and she does not cry, even as her skin burns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope ur all enjoying so far. final chap will be up in another 2 days :)


	3. Chapter 3

The last time Ellie had truly, completely unraveled before Joel, was the night before he died.

It goes like this: Dina, knowing fully well that Ellie has become increasingly withdrawn and depressed these past two years (because of Joel, which Dina does not know at all), somehow persuades her into attending a little party in the mess hall. Ellie almost bails at the last second, before tempted by the prospect of getting to spend some time with Dina (which is dumb, and selfish—she just broke up a week ago and she’s definitely not interested in Ellie in that way).

Ellie spends the majority of the night on the sidelines, basking in the low bustle of Jackson gathering together in this one, large room, dancing and singing and laughing. It brings her a sense of comfort, even as she lingers back and pointedly avoids anything other than the occasional small talk thrown her way.

And then Dina finally finds her.

And she drags her out onto the dance floor, arms around her neck, whispering pleasantly into Ellie’s ear. Her breath is laced in liquor and it only serves to tell Ellie, _this is a mistake, she wouldn’t be like this if she was sober, Dina’s flirty with everyone._

And then Dina _kisses_ her.

Ellie is caught off guard, but Dina shows no regret and even kisses her again, so she kisses back, and lets herself relish greedily in this moment even if she’ll only wake up the next morning sick with regret.

Unfortunately, this is when it all starts to crumble, and Seth decides to be an asshole. “Hey, this is a family event.”

The guy has always had a stick up his ass. Dina seems to know as much from the way she scoffs and mutters to him, entirely unapologetically, “Sorry.” He continues to glare, and she bites out, harsher, “Sorry!”

Dina is rolling her eyes and trying to lead them away, but Seth keeps pushing. What’s his problem?

“Remember next time there’s kids around.”

Dina is pissed. (It’s kind of hot.) “Yeah, like you’re setting such a great example.”

“Oh, just what this town needs,” he sneers. “Another loud-mouthed _dyke._ ”

Ah. So that’s his problem.

Ellie stops, and she turns on her heel in an instant. Conversely, Dina seems to have decided that this has gone too far, and is already trying to placate the situation, trying to pull Ellie aside as she marches indignantly right towards that old motherfucker.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

She doesn’t get much closer than a foot away from Seth, because Dina’s still in her face, trying to make her back off, and then—and then Joel is here, of all people, and he shoves Seth hard, practically seething. “Hey,” he snarls, “get the hell out of here.”

Seth just wants to retaliate though, and both men glower at each other for a moment before Maria intervenes and walks Seth outside. Which leaves Joel to Ellie. _Perfect._

He asks after her, “Are you alright, kiddo?” like everything is just as it was all that time ago, like he didn’t do what he did, like they haven’t hardly interacted in two years. Like—like him stepping in, as some kind of hero when Ellie was perfectly capable of handling that situation on her own, is enough to make up for—for—

“What is wrong with you?”

Wavering, Joel takes a step back, almost unnoticeably. She notices. “… He had no right—”

“And you do?” She tries her best to swallow the spitting fire crawling up her throat. “I don’t need your fucking help, Joel.”

Her words reverberate around them, and for a moment it’s just him and her, in this congested little bubble, and they’re not at the dance. They’re—they’re in a safehouse in Boston and he’s an unnamed smuggler that doesn’t want anything to do with a little girl; they’re in the garage, and he’s nearly dead but he’s not yet because she won’t let him; they’re standing outside of Jackson, and he’s promising that he’s telling her the truth, and somehow, she makes herself believe him.

They’re in Salt Lake City, outside the hospital, and he’s finally telling her the real truth and she can’t bear to look him in the eyes anymore.

His shoulders slacken. “Right.” Like he’s stirred from a long dream, like he’s suddenly remembered that no, he doesn’t have the right to stand here, to ask if she’s okay, to act like he’s still allowed to care.

(But he’s always cared, hasn’t he? Even when she pushed him away? He never stopped.)

Joel leaves.

Ellie remains there for a few more minutes, and Dina is nervous to provide much other than gentle apologies, and she asks Ellie if she wants to go somewhere else but Ellie tells her she thinks she just wants to go home, now.

The walk back to her house is brisk, no more than five minutes. She’d finally moved out of Joel’s shed not long after her confrontation, to which Maria abided without any question; the tension had been tangible between them, even though nobody really knew what had transpired between her and Joel. Ellie needed the autonomy, the distance.

It’s chilly out, but the snow lays thin on the ground and buildings, blotches of it already melted away. It’ll probably snow again, tomorrow. Everyone who isn’t still at the dance is sleeping, which means Jackson is the quietest it’s been in a long time. Ellie appreciates the solace, and she appreciates the way the cold greets her after exiting the mess hall, sobering and sharp.

She’s almost to her house when her ears latch onto the distant, melodic strokes of an acoustic guitar from down the street, and she knows exactly where it’s coming from; she can tell from the faraway, golden wink that his porch light is still on.

For some reason she still isn’t sure of, Ellie finds herself shifting in her tracks and doing something she hasn’t done in two years: stepping onto Joel’s front porch.

He’s strumming idly in his chair, head low, likely concentrated on the music. He bounces his ankle on his knee in tempo with the song, and anyone else would see a man completely unwinding and carefree after a long day. Ellie, however, spots those tense shoulders and that deep-set frown from a mile away.

When she gets close enough, he immediately stops what he’s doing and meets her eyes with subdued surprise. A moth flutters around his head, hesitant, nervous, flirting with the lantern on the wall beside him. There’s almost a smile at his lips, as he whispers, like he’s worried that speaking any louder would only scare her off, “Hey.”

She can’t really figure out why she’s here, but she is, and she supposes she just has to roll with it. Carefully, she walks across his porch to grip the railing and stare out onto empty street, bathed in shadows; the moon sulks behind clouds tonight. Hesitantly, Joel sets aside his guitar and joins her, cradling a mug in his hands. She is silently grateful that he keeps a foot of distance between them. He understands the boundaries she requires, even now.

“What’re you drinking?” she asks, in place of a greeting.

Joel huffs, some sort of tired laughter, as he stares down into the mug’s contents. “Coffee.”

And she knows, of course, how much he loves coffee. He never—well, he _used to_ never shut up about it. Ellie muses to herself that she doesn’t really know if he still does, though it’s likely, considering he’s somehow finally gotten his hands on some. “Where’d you get that?”

“Uh, those people that came through last week.” He shrugs indifferently, smiling privately to himself. “A little embarrassed as to what I had to trade to get it, but… it’s not bad.”

Ellie contemplates how and what she wants to say. Her tongue kind of feels like cotton, useless, trapping the words in her throat. “I had Seth under control,” she settles on.

“Yeah, I know.”

This is easier than she’d thought it would be. Tonight almost feels like some far off dream, where she gets to live out her wildest fantasies with no consequences. She wonders just how much she’s going to want to throw herself out the window, tomorrow morning, when the gravity of what all has taken place tonight finally sets in.

Kissing Dina? Talking to Joel? Christ.

Clenching her fists, she then tells him, “And you need to stop harassing Jesse about my patrols.”

“Okay.”

She nods, and that’s it. That’s—that’s all she has to say to him, really. It isn’t, in actuality, not at all, but it’s all she can muster up the will to get out at the moment. It’s a start, no matter how small. She’s surprised she’s gotten this far anyways—they haven’t spoken like this in years, and _this_ can hardly be considered anything beyond small talk.

But it is more than small talk. She knows Joel can sense the heavy blanket of significance draped over them right now. The importance behind every word each of them chooses to utter to one other. They’re like high school friends, who have since lost touch, but then decided to reunite briefly down the road; they’re both different people now, and they’ve both missed out on so much of the other’s life, and things have grown sort of awkward since graduating but they still want the other to know that they care, even if they’ll never admit it outright.

Joel draws in a long breath, but it’s shallow and brittle. “Dina. Is she your girlfriend?”

Fucking hell. Ellie squirms and says, almost too quickly, “No.” She squeezes her eyes shut, her neck hot, fumbling for words. “No, that’s not—she was just—it doesn’t mean anything, she just… I dunno why she did that.”

“But you do like her,” he counters, and all she can do is sigh. Because she does. Like her.

And she also just freaked out and abandoned Dina on the spot.

“I’m so stupid.”

“Look, I have no idea what that girl’s intentions are, but…” Something comes over Joel, and his voice raises just slightly, a newfound stability endowed in him, some sort of confidence. He meets her eyes as he says, “I do know that she would be lucky to have you.”

God—like—like that’s enough. Like that’s his way of saying, _I know I can’t be a part of your life anymore, but I’m glad you’ve found another person that can support you in a way that I never could._ Like he can just dance around the tension still stuck between them, even when the truth is already laid out, even when Ellie has already made known how it made her feel.

There is a dampness pooling in her eyes and it makes her so mad. “You’re such an asshole.”

“I’m not trying to—”

“I was supposed to _die_ in that hospital.” It’s overflowing again. She’s too tired to stop it this time, to try and reel it back in. A dark heat curls around her, poignant with emotion, bathed in anguish. “My life would have _fucking mattered._ But you took that from me.”

Silence snakes between them. Ellie holds back her tears and he doesn’t say anything for a while and it just makes her hurt worse.

Then he straightens out, and places his mug down on the railing, his features firm.

“If somehow the Lord gave me a second chance at that moment, I would do it _all_ over again.” He looks at her, and there is a graveness in his eyes. Joel isn’t angry, not that he’d ever have any right to be, but there is something almost indecipherable radiating from him. It puts her at a loss for words.

Joel is looking at her, she thinks, with the eyes of a man who has lost everything. His life, his daughter, his humanity. And he looks at her with the eyes of a man who managed to find that again, something better, even when it all seemed hopeless—he was given a second chance, in a world filled with death and lies, when he found Ellie, and the promise of a home in Jackson, and the promise of peace.

He is selfish. And he knows this, she can tell, now. Joel has spent the last two years drowning in the consequences of his actions, the consequences of playing with fate and taking away her choice because he, like any other man would, chose what was important to him over what was important to the rest of the world.

Her next words slip out of her venomous, but not spiteful. Only truthful, in a way that makes her ache beyond comprehension. “I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that.”

Slowly, Joel sinks back down to lean over the railing, his breaths heavy, his eyes fogged in a flurry of emotions she doesn’t think she’ll ever have the time to unpack.

Ellie thinks she will always hate him for being selfish. For not just robbing the world of a cure, but for robbing her of a choice. And yet, she also sees the way he carries himself. The way he did whatever he could that he thought was best for her, always, never for himself. The way he tried to give her a normal life in Jackson, the way he abided by her wishes and kept his distance after she found out the truth.

The way he tried to help her reach for the stars, even when every force in the universe has tried to stop him. Because the choice he made in Salt Lake was never about him. It was always for her. _Always._

“… But I would like to try.”

He almost seems to collapse on the spot, suddenly barely holding himself together. He pushes through his sorrow, against his rising tears.

“I’d like that.”

Quiet drifts through them again, but it’s gentle. The night’s breeze caresses her face, and the scent of coffee teases her nostrils. There are fireflies, coasting lazily past them down the street, following the wind, chasing away the dark.

“Okay.” Ellie looks at him, but he is deeply fixated on the mug in his hands. She exhales. “I’ll see you around.”

“Yep.”

She turns to leave. Stops at the first step, and looks back over her shoulder. Joel hasn’t moved. He still stares down at his coffee, which must have gone cold by now. His face is shadowed, but there’s something watery etched into it, something tender. Ellie glances to the porch light; the moth from earlier has since settled on its surface, folding its wings serenely.

Her feet move on their own and suddenly her arms are wrapped around him. She doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but maybe she’s crying, it’s hard to tell, everything is really overwhelming. Joel doesn’t react much and it’s not because he doesn’t want to hug her back, no, it’s because she knows the last thing he wants is to breach her boundaries. After a few moments, the most he does is bring up a single hand to lightly graze her back, a kind, consoling touch, hesitant with the promise to back off if she ever needs it.

When she draws away, his face is wet. Hers probably is too.

“Joel, I—” The words are lodged in her throat.

He simply smiles at her, and takes a step away. “I know.”

Ellie sniffs. “… Yeah.” Breathes. “Okay. See you around.” A coy grin is playing at her lips, bittersweet but so _right,_ anyways, in a way that’s rejuvenating because things haven’t felt even close to _right_ in so long. “For real this time.”

She walks home that night with a hollowness in her chest, replaying that conversation over and over in her head. For once, the light feeling isn’t just something painful, like the fresh sensation of her heart being ripped from her chest. It is just as terrifying and incapacitating, and yet there’s something strangely hopeful about it, like the prospect of something else taking its stead. She ends up sleeping in later than she has in two years, that night.

_(I don’t think I can ever forgive you for that… but I would like to try.)_

Now, here, drenched in saltwater, drenched in red, those words still ricochet around her head discordantly, serrated, cutting up her insides.

She has Abby right where she wants her.

She can finish it, right now. Abby is weak, Abby is dying, and Ellie has her shoved underwater while she flails helplessly against her, unable to stop her, unable to keep pushing.

Abby looks like a ghoul beneath the surface, face contorted in agony, blood clouding around her in the murky green. The throbbing beneath Ellie’s skin, that runs so deeply in her bones and sprouts from the wrath nestled safely betwixt her ribs, has reached its zenith. The wrath is clawing at her chest, begging her, _end it, end it, end it,_ and Ellie isn’t Ellie anymore but she simply is the wrath, now. It fills every ounce of her core.

When she closes her eyes, she sees Joel on the ground, bludgeoned, bleeding, dead.

When she opens them, Joel is looking at her in subdued surprise, and there’s almost a smile at his lips as his fingers stop in their strumming and he simply takes her in for a small moment. The night is chilly and the scent of coffee wafts around them and a moth contemplates a porch light. It’s probably going to snow tomorrow.

_(But I would like to try.)_

The wrath that has consumed her, she suddenly learns, is not wrath at all. It never was; just grief, just an emptiness, curled up pathetically in the pit of her stomach. All it’s done all this time is hide there, exhausted beyond repair, begging her to end it. And she had dragged herself through all this turmoil, anyways; maybe because she felt she deserved it.

_End it. End it. End it._

She was never really the one just abetting it, was she? No, not this sad, withering thing in her. It doesn’t have the guts to do what she’s done. It never has.

Ellie lets go.

She sits back, and the water is ice against her ankles, lapping with echoes of aggravation at her back, as she drops her head and watches blood drip from the stumps of her fingers. Abby gets into the boat and leaves, and Ellie is left alone in the fog.

The saltwater sings against her injuries in a choir of heartache, and her hand won’t stop bleeding, and all she can do is weep to the broken melody of the boat’s motor fleeing into nothing.

It never stops burning, but she lets go.

* * *

When she finally seems to come to a period that can only be described as _after,_ Ellie spends a long time unsure of what to do with herself. She pulls herself into the boat only once she’s too tired to cry anymore, too shattered to feel, and then moves along the coast until she feels adequately far enough from the Rattlers to stop and rest. Then it becomes a matter of cauterizing the two fresh stubs on her left hand of what used to be fingers, as well as tending to the new bite mark right beside them, before infection takes over.

She makes her way through a few convenience stores in a small beach town before she finds enough medical supplies because her own arsenal only consists of an old granola bar and some rags. Once everything is taken care of and her hand is sufficiently patched up, Ellie drags herself back into the boat, and it all seems to drift by in slow motion, her body wobbly and lethargic and her thoughts scattered.

For an undetermined amount of time, Ellie lays in the boat, splayed out like a ragdoll over the seats because she’s too exhausted to reposition herself, and she watches an orange sun peak over the bleak horizon, swathed in gray fog. It creeps steadily upward, despite how thick and languid the atmosphere rests over it, and suddenly the sun is already halfway towards its peak when it seems like only seconds have passed.

God. Where is she supposed to go, now?

Surely not back to Dina and JJ. Surely not to Jackson. She lost her right to return to any of that the moment she turned her back on them and left the farm.

But she also has nowhere else, and she at least owes it to them to tell them she’s still alive, to tell them what happened, to make sure they’re still alive.

Fuck. Ellie would never forgive herself if they weren’t still alive.

With the newfound acknowledgement that she’ll never rest until she knows for certain, there is no question of where she’s supposed to go next. What comes after _that_ is something she’ll have to figure out when she gets there. A lot of it depends on what she finds when she gets back to Wyoming, and how Dina reacts when she does.

(As if Dina will ever want anything to do with her. As if her last words to her weren’t, _I’m not gonna do this again._ )

That doesn’t matter, though, because that’s not what this is about. Ellie’s return to the farm is not about Ellie, it’s about Dina and JJ. Hell, she won’t even speak to them if they don’t want her to. She won’t step foot on the property if they don’t want her to. As long as she knows they’re okay, they’re alive, that’s enough for her. And then she can leave for good and stop being a weight on their shoulders.

She spends many nights on her journey back wondering if Dina has found someone else. The thought of it kills her, it really does, but she doesn’t put it past her and she knows she couldn’t even be angry if that were the case. It’ll have been nearly three months since she left by the time she gets back—a small amount of time to get over her partner, let alone replace her, but if Dina needs the stability of a relationship to keep herself afloat, then that’s what Dina needs.

God, _three months._ Ellie considers, grimly, if maybe it’s been longer than that—the amount of time it’s been since she’s left the farm. Not literally, but in a different sense. She knows, and she knows that Dina knows, that Ellie wasn’t entirely there in what could only be considered a blissful few months through an outsider’s lens, when Dina had given birth and they’d officially moved in and started raising JJ.

Living that way was only killing her slowly. Ellie fell in love with Dina, and JJ, and the farm, and the serendipity of it all. But she was also haunted by everything she kept trying to forget, because she’d never gotten any sort of closure for it.

And she’s learned, now, that the closure she’d been looking for was twisted and wrong, and she’d learned, long ago, that searching for it meant throwing away everything else in her life.

Which is precisely what she’s done. She never even succeeded in finishing things, ending it, not in the way she ever imagined though not any less devalued because she feels she needed that moment, anyways: on her knees in the saltwater, Abby beneath her, red and pain and death in her grasp; the bitter understanding that this isn’t what she needs, what she ever wanted, what Joel would’ve ever wanted.

Even though she didn’t do what she had intended to do, Ellie knows she never would’ve stopped until she made it that far.

And yet, still. Knowing the cost of it all, knowing the only way to find any semblance of forgiveness in herself, also meant to cast aside everything else in life that she still lives for, cuts her up inside like a brittle but stubborn switchblade that was long abandoned in the shallow seawater of Santa Barbara.

Ellie chose to be selfish. She chose to try and fix herself, and consequently destroy herself, by leaving.

(But is that really the option to be considered selfish? Would it have been more selfish of her to stay, to pretend, to painstakingly glue herself back together even though she was an irreparable broken vase, several shards already lost to dust and shadows?)

She wonders, as she gets closer and closer to Jackson, to the farm, how many landmarks she’s missed. It hasn’t been that long and JJ’s still too young—she would know, she’s been counting the days—but she had also memorized those parenting books front to back long before he had even been born. Has he already started crawling? How well can he sit up on his own? How coherent has his soft little baby babbling become?

He’s still too young to speak. He’s still too young to speak. She didn’t miss his first words yet. She _didn’t._

(But, when she returns and Dina inevitably tells her she doesn’t want her in their lives anymore, she knows desolately that she will.)

The farm is almost exactly as she remembers it. Although there is a fatigue to its walls and shingles, an exhaustion to the naked tree beside it, a lonesomeness to the abandoned tractor in the field out front, that make her stop to soak it all in and feel the ache run deep under her skin that hasn’t left since the night she stepped out the door. Since the night in the theater. Since the night Joel died. Since the night his words sunk in, truly, as she struggled to comprehend that he lied, and that she should’ve died, and that she would never forgive him.

Forgiveness is a curious, fragile thing, isn’t it?

Ellie quickly comes to the realization that Dina and JJ are gone. She realizes this even before she’s opened the front door to vacant rooms and gathering dust and closed curtains. And she asks herself, as she steps onto the porch and her hand clasps over the door handle, _is this how Joel felt? Drowning in guilt because you betrayed the people you love in the name of love, even though you had no other choice, even though doing anything other than the thing you decided to do would have destroyed you entirely? Drowning in the knowledge that because of this thing you had to do, no matter how necessary, the people you love have now left you because you weren’t good enough to just settle for the given circumstances?_

Her left hand burns.

She makes her way upstairs like a flimsy tree caught in a storm, swaying, trembling, splitting apart at the seams and just trying to keep herself grounded. There is no need to search every individual room, because she already knows everything is gone. The only room she does stop to check is the bedroom, which is barren except for the neatly folded sheets and singular pillow at the foot of the stripped mattress. No note, no sign, but a simple gesture that she was not forgotten, only moved on from.

With an ever enlarging cavity in her chest, Ellie moves to the door of her studio, and pushes it open. A cool breeze from the half-opened window greets her, coupled with the sight of all her artwork, canvases, boxes, and supplies still just as they were before, the only indication that anything ever resided in this house. Somehow, seeing it all still here, when everything else _isn’t_ here, stings.

What does it all mean? Is it Dina’s way of telling her that she doesn’t want her anymore? Or is it that she wants Ellie to know she still thinks of her, that she wanted Ellie to have something when she came back, that doing anything but leaving Ellie’s things as they were wouldn’t have felt right?

The guitar is still here. Of course it is, everything in her studio is still here, but seeing the guitar— _his_ guitar—is a slap in the face. Even so, she finds herself moving without thought, lifting it from its case, and sitting down and bringing her fingers to the strings. She strums absently at easy, open notes, but then she wants to do more, she wants to think of a late night in the shed, when Joel forgot how his joke about the clock went, but it was okay because he had a song he wanted to play for her and it actually didn’t suck. She wants to think of a golden porch light, a moth finally finding it, and the smell of coffee and the feeling of being _okay_ for once, the feeling of acceptance and forgiveness despite everything.

(She wants to think of future days, and the promise of something better.)

The tones of the guitar come out discordant and clipped, _off,_ and she decidedly does not cry because she won’t let herself fall apart again, not like she has before. Two of her fingers are gone and it doesn’t matter, because what happened has already happened and looking into the past doesn’t fix anything, she knows this, she taught herself this as saltwater clung to her fresh wounds and she nearly stole another life in vain.

A long sigh tumbles from her lips as Ellie stands up and sets the guitar against the windowsill. She can’t keep letting her mind wander, wondering what Dina is thinking, why Dina did what she did; she just needs to go and find out for herself. They’re at Jackson, they must be. That would be the best place for Dina to raise JJ, as a recently single parent who wouldn’t have the time to also care for the farm.

And they’re definitely not dead. They’re alive, and maybe want nothing to do with Ellie anymore, but that’s okay, because she’s the one that caused all the distress in their family and Dina has every right to hate her and Ellie has been relearning to just be okay with things, even if it hurts.

So she leaves behind the guitar, and does not touch anything else in the house even though it’s already emptied of its contents, like it’ll crumble if she so much as brushes a finger against a wall. She leaves, purpose in her step, on the route to Jackson.

She reminds herself, as she moves, that this is not a search for forgiveness. The last thing Ellie is entitled to is forgiveness, just as Joel wasn’t either, once. And that’s okay, because it has to be.

The walk to Jackson is only a few hours if she doesn’t stop. And she’s busied enough with the white noise of bristling foliage and chittering wildlife, as well as the constant watchfulness any survivor must maintain in this kind of world. But her mind drifts, anyways, and although it conjures wretched thoughts and images that are sick and maddening, she feels a chilling sense of apathy towards it.

Instead, Ellie tries to concentrate on the feeling of Dina’s bracelet hugging her wrist. She hadn’t worn it her entire journey to Santa Barbara, maybe because she felt—no, she _knew_ that she didn’t deserve to after the way she left Dina. Maybe Dina had still prayed that Ellie would survive this, but she certainly did not want to help her fulfill her malicious desires, not after everything.

_(I’m not gonna do this again.)_

Regardless, she wears it now, even ashamedly. She hates herself for being too weak to leave it buried in her backpack, but the first night after leaving behind the pillars in Santa Barbara, Ellie had dug it out anyways and fastened it to her wrist, and it was the only thing to soothe the feeling of red streaming over every inch of her skin, staining her permanently.

It is selfish, probably, to wear the bracelet now. And Ellie will not argue if, upon finding her again, Dina asks for it back. But for now she indulges herself, and pretends the only thing she can feel right now is the loose strands of leather tied above her right hand, and pretends to ignore the dull burning in her left hand, and pretends that Dina still thinks of her and still hopes that the bracelet will protect her with the promise of good luck.

Jackson is asleep when Ellie finds it. She prefers it this way, she thinks, because she doesn’t know if she’s ready to face anybody else right now. She might not be ready to face Dina, either, but at least it’s easier this way.

She doesn’t go through the front gate, because that’s suicide. Instead, Ellie makes her way around the walls until she uncovers the secret entrance that only she and Dina and Jesse know _(knew)_ of, back when they were all younger and more careless and snuck out to be stupid teenagers every now and then. She has to cut through the farm in the east sector before finding her way back to the street that leads to Dina’s old place. All the while, she sticks to the shadows, wary of accidentally alerting someone to what probably looks like an unknown intruder.

Though, she is an intruder, isn’t she? The layout of the town is imprinted permanently into her mind, and Ellie called this place a home for so long, and her family is here now, but—she can’t help but feel out of place, like she’s trying to force herself back into something that doesn’t belong to her anymore.

When she finally reaches her destination, the lights to Dina’s house are off, as is almost every other house in Jackson at this hour. But Dina’s a light sleeper, and maybe—

_Well._ Ellie wonders to herself, quietly, as she stands before the front porch and contemplates the specifics of _what now,_ if it’s easier if Dina doesn’t wake up, if she doesn’t have to face her. Maybe it’s easier if she can simply peer through a window and catch a glimpse of her resting soundly in bed, JJ likely curled against her under the blankets.

Tentatively, she starts up towards the door, and hovers. Hesitates. Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe Ellie doesn’t even owe it to herself to make sure Dina and JJ are alive and well. What right does she have to be here, to be allowed to know how they’re doing? Maybe the only way to repent for all she’s done is to live a life of suffering in not knowing, in always questioning, always doubting.

Gently, she walks herself away from the door, and sits weakly on the first step, her back to the house. _She should leave._

Something creaks behind her; a door swinging open.

Ellie stands and turns instantly, heart lurching, as she meets Dina’s eyes.

Dina looks the same as she last remembers: messy, dark hair that cascades over her beautifully, and those shimmering brown eyes that pierce through her every time she looks into them. She’s in a tank and sweatpants, and she looks tired and vulnerable despite her guarded stare and the pistol in her hands.

All they do for a moment is stare at one another, and Ellie nearly bursts into tears.

But she won’t. She promised herself that she wouldn’t fall apart.

Not much shifts in Dina’s expression as she takes everything in. She remains silent and her eyes search Ellie with a hardness Ellie isn’t used to being met with, not from Dina. But there’s also recognition, and an immediacy in how her shoulders slacken and she tucks away the gun.

Ellie swallows thickly. Her mouth is dry. “I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come, I was just about to leave—”

“ _Fuck,_ Ellie,” ghosts from Dina’s lips, her eyes glistening in the dark. Ellie nearly melts at hearing her voice again, at hearing her name in Dina’s mouth, even when it comes out so discreet and broken.

She has so much she wants to say but she also refuses to let herself say anything, because this is all up to Dina. If Dina wants to talk, then they can talk, but if she tells Ellie to get out of Jackson and never come back, then that’s exactly what she’ll do, no questions asked.

A moment drifts by, and Dina runs a hand over her face. “Can you—can you stop looking at me like that and just come inside?”

Ellie nods, all jittery, and she steps through the door as Dina beckons her in before closing it behind them. She hasn’t seen Dina’s house in a while, not since before Seattle, and there isn’t much familiarity to it aside from the placement of the rooms. Instead it feels like an echo of the _farm;_ it’s filled with most of the same furniture, and the same old pictures they had hung up, and JJ’s toys are strewn all around.

Dina walks past her uncertainly, while Ellie stands there and lets her eyes roam over everything, until Dina takes a seat on the couch and looks at her expectantly. Ellie joins her without protest, although she sits on the other side and keeps her hands in her lap, gaze caught on a collection of wooden building blocks toppled on the floor in front of her.

She can feel Dina’s gaze searing through her. “He’s sleeping.”

Clenching her jaw, Ellie emits a hum. All of this feels like a faraway dream, like she’s going to wake up any second on the beach of Santa Barbara, alone except for her eight fingers and two bite marks and millions of sketches of Joel and JJ and Dina tucked away in her journal.

Dina continues, her voice low, laden with fatigue and hurt, “He’s missed you.”

“Yeah,” Ellie murmurs, and then she locks eyes with her, and ignores the way her vision blurs with tears. “I—I’m so sorry. I never… A day didn’t go by when I didn’t think of you two.”

Dina inhales sharply and drops her gaze, like it’s too painful to maintain it. “I had to leave the farm.”

“I know.”

The silence is hard to fill. It rests broad and suffocating between them, and Ellie hates it, she hates how distraught Dina looks right now, even with all the lights off and her head tipped down because she can’t even meet Ellie’s eyes. She hates that her mere presence does this to her. Maybe this was a mistake.

“Did you do it?” Dina asks after a while.

Ellie finds the two stubs on her left hand, tracing fingers over them instinctively. She doesn’t mean to direct attention to them, but Dina is nothing if not attentive, and her eyes instantly flit to her hands in her lap. She ignores the growing concern in Dina’s face as she makes out the disgusting, mutilated image of her hand. She ignores how Dina stiffens when her eyes trail to the bracelet, and she tries not to let herself overanalyze what could possibly be going through Dina’s head.

When she speaks, Ellie’s voice feels raw in her throat, but her words are nonetheless resolute. “No. No, I let—I let her go. I let go.”

“And is that—is that—”

“ _Yes._ ” Tears are falling freely down her face now, but Ellie is not coming undone, she is not unraveling. She is very much still in one piece, even without two fingers, even as her chest aches. She is the most cohesive and alive that she’s felt in a very long time. “Dina, I—I can’t apologize for leaving, because it’s something I had to do. But god, I am so fucking sorry for ever hurting you or JJ, or for _ever_ making you think you aren’t important to me.”

Dina is barely holding herself together, barely keeping herself from breaking down; Ellie reads it clearly in her the furrow of her brows and the pout of her lips, the dampness pooling in her eyes and the way she shakes.

Once she’s reigned in some emotion, Ellie tries to find her voice again. “I’m not here to ask you for forgiveness, because I know I don’t have any right to. I just—I had to make sure you were okay. And if you don’t want me here then I’ll leave, I promise—”

“ _Ellie._ ”

Suddenly she is overwhelmed in warmth, in _Dina,_ because there are arms curled tightly around her and a face is buried against her shoulder.

“I’ve been so angry, and so sad, for so long,” Dina mumbles into her chest, never once relinquishing her hold. “And I think we’ll both need some time to heal. But please, _please_ don’t ever leave again.”

Ellie bows her head against Dina’s, breathing in the scent of her hair. “Okay.”

And as she wraps her arms back around Dina and holds her, Ellie tells herself, decisively, that this is the one thing she will never let go of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have several interpretations of the ending to tlou2 but this one felt the most fitting for this story? however i also rly like the hc that ellie already reunited w dina b4 returning to the farm.
> 
> anyway. finally done w this fic, now i can move onto a much more lighthearted tlou au which i will be working on in the near future (but school is also a Thing now so wish me luck haha). hope u all enjoyed:)


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